Determining what is real, sustainable production instead of unreliable production is critical for your fantasy team. Players with sustainable production should be anchors to your team and the type of players you seek to acquire in the trade market. Players with unsustainable production are the types of players that you should not depend on in your lineup and sell trades.
Is Gus Edwards a reliable top-12 producer?
Gus Edwards has the most points of any running back from weeks 8 through 9 with 46.6 points. That is good for 23.3 and 4th among running backs in points per game during the stretch.
Is this a new reality? In a word, no.
Gus Edwards has five rushing touchdowns in the past two weeks, with an expectation based on his usage of 2.4 rushing touchdowns.
On the season, Edwards has 5.1 expected rushing touchdowns, the 7th most among the position, for a total of seven rushing touchdowns. Edwards has been a minimal scoring profile on the season. Edwards has 107 receiving yards, the second-highest of his career, which ranks 32nd in the league among running backs. Overall, on the season, Edwards ranks 28th in points per game (11.8), which is much closer to his remaining season trajectory.
Edwards’s two rushing touchdowns in week nine covered up for dwindling usage. Edwards had only 14% of the team’s rushing attempts. The other big storyline of the backfield this week was the emergence of Keaton Mitchell, who rushed for 138 yards and a touchdown on 9 carries. However, Mitchell’s production was also on low participation, with his production coming on only 17% of the team’s offensive snaps and 24% of the team’s carries.
On the week, it was Justice Hill who had a season-high in snap share (64%) and route participation (71%). The backfield has been a quagmire this entire season, and the headlines from week nine cover up the continued confusing nature of the usage patterns.
Verdict: Baltimore’s backfield has been a mess week after week, and despite Gus Edwards' strong performances the past two weeks, the situation is no clearer heading into the second half of the season.
Is Alvin Kamara Top 5 back?
Alvin Kamara has come on strong after returning from a three-game suspension to start the season. He ranks third in points per game among running backs (20.5) and leads the position in receptions (43) by 10 over Rachaad White (33). While the production has been strong, Kamara’s playing time has dwindled.
- Week 6: 79% snap share – 76% rushing attempts – 57% route participation
- Week 7: 72% snap share – 61% rushing attempts – 66% route participation
- Week 8: 58% snap share – 49% rushing attempts – 55% route participation
- Week 9: 50% snap share – 35% rushing attempts – 50% route participation
There has not been a meaningful beneficiary in the backfield of Kamara’s reduced role. In week nine, Jamaal Williams saw his highest snap share (42%) and route participation (31%) since his return from injured reserve in week seven. Additionally, Kendre Miller has played less than 15% snap share the past two weeks but saw 16% and 14% route participation in the past two weeks. Williams and Miller, combined with Taysom Hill’s usage of 23% and 42% of the team’s designed rush attempts the past two weeks, has created a cap on Kamara’s workload.
Kamara is dependent on a league-leading target rate on his routes (34%) to generate his fantasy points, and it is questionable whether this will continue. Derek Carr has struggled in his first half of a season in New Orleans but has Chris Olave, Michael Thomas, and Rasheed Shaheed as wide receivers who form one of the better trios in the league. In an ideal world, more of the team’s targets would go to Olave, which may be a goal of the offense after the team’s week 11 bye.
Verdict: Alvin Kamara’s performance is based on dominant efficiency on dwindling snap share, which could settle in the more mid-range RB1 than high-end RB1 range as the offense continues to evolve down the second half of the season.