RB Opportunity Share and Impact (AFC South & West): 2019 Review

February 16, 2020

Antonio Losada looks at last season's running back usage and fantasy impact for each of the 32 NFL teams. He tackles both the AFC South and AFC West franchises this time around.

We roll on with coverage of each of the eight NFL divisions, discussing the teams that are part of them and the running backs that were part of those teams in 2019. To present those teams and players I use a set of easy-to-read charts: treemaps. The graphics will hold all of the players of each team, the size of each box corresponding with the number of targets+carries (percentage among teammates) he saw during the season and the color related to the fantasy points per game (PPR-format leagues) he finished with at the end of the year. Also, the width of the full graphic represents how many total opportunities (tarets+carries; combining those of every rusher) were awarded to running backs by the team compared to the rest of the teams of its division (the empty space in blue to the right, the fewer targets+carries were used by rushers of such team).

Just to make things as clear as possible, I will add a little personal blurb on each team and how they performed in terms of RB usage and impact during the 2019 season.

Let's break things down, this time covering the AFC South and AFC West eight teams!

AFC South: RB Opportunity Share & Fantasy Impact

• Houston Texans
  • Two-back backfield that of the Texans with a very simple 2:1 approach in which Hyde saw 65% of the opportunities to Duke's 25%.
  • Should that have been the case, though? Not so sure of it. Hyde provided 51.4% of the total points of the backfield and Duke 48.4%, and the points per game were virtually equal. The absolute difference in their rushing/receiving profiles, though, made it work.
• Tennessee Titans
  • Even with such a unidimensional tailback as Derrick Henry, who can't catch a pass for his life, Tennessee exploited his pure-rushing prowess and gave Henry more than 80% of the opportunities. In line with that, he returned 80% of the backfield total fantasy points.
  • Lewis didn't have a lot of chances to prove himself, though he was the clear second fiddle to Henry's beastly exploits.
• Indianapolis Colts
  • With Marlon Mack missing time here and there, Indianapolis had to look for solutions in its depth chart. The share was fairly distributed among those non-RB1 backs with two of them (Williams and Wilkins) having 12% of the chances and Hines logging 22% of them.
  • The returns in production were pretty similar, only that Indy should have got a little bit more from Mack (53.1% of opportunities to 44.7% of fantasy points). Hines was the clear no. 2 guy of the backfield getting 30.4% of the fantasy points produced himself mostly due to his pass-catching abilities.
• Jacksonville Jaguars
  • Not a lot to be said here. Fournette came, saw, and conquered. He logged 89.8% of the opportunities and returned 88.7% of the backfield total fantasy points, whether they came via receiving or rushing.
  • Armstead is cooked in this backfield. 59 total opportunities on the season, in which he played 14 games, for just a paltry 10.2% opportunity share...

AFC West: RB Opportunity Share & Fantasy Impact

• Kansas City Chiefs
  • The Chiefs' backfield was a headache for fantasy owners but a pleasure for its real-life fans with three players returning at least 21% of the total fantasy points.
  • The opportunities were also shared correctly and aligned which each tailback production, so nothing to criticize here. McCoy had a 36.8% and returned 37.6% of the points, followed by Damien Williams (30% for 28.7% of the points) and Darrel Williams (16.6% for 21.4%).
  • Keep an eye on Darwin Thompson. He didn't have a lot of chances to showcase himself but with a 10.4% opportunity share, he was still able to return a nice 8.7% of the team's points. If his role grows there is no reason to think he can't play at the level of the other three backs.
• Denver Broncos
  • This was a committee more often than not early in the season but ultimately Lindsay out-performed Freeman in every department.
  • Denver pulled the correct move giving Lindsay 55% of the opportunities over Freeman's 40% at the end of the season, given that the former returned 50.9% of the team's points compared to just 38.1% from the latter.
• Oakland Raiders
  • It was a shame to see Jacobs miss games (13 played) during this past season because he thrived in Oakland. He was given 60% of the chances and returned 53.5% of the total points averaging a great 14.9 FP/G.
  • DeAndre and Jalen shared most of the rest of the targets and rushing attempts and were pretty much equal in production, with Washington getting the edge only because of his pair of touchdowns scored throughout the year.
• Los Angeles Chargers
  • Boooo! The Chargers conceded a lot to a holding-out Gordon this past season while having a clear-cut No. 1 rusher already in Austin Ekeler. It's a little mindboggling to see the opportunity share be so close (Ekeler 46.3%, Gordon 39.6%) while the points returned were mostly coming from Ekeler (59.3% to Gordon's 29.3%).
  • Justin Jackson was Ekeler's handcuff until Ekeler became Gordon's handcuff and Jackson lost all of the potential value he held one day. Jackson could only get 8.6% of the targets+attempts, a ground-level percentage.

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