1063: 10 Trends for Week 14

**JJ Zachariason** (0:02)
This is The Late-Round Podcast with your host, JJ Zachariason.
What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason. In this episode 1063 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in. Before getting to the trends this week, I want to send another reminder about the Late-Round newsletter. The season might be ending soon, but during the off season, I'm still sending out research, I'm sending out articles in that newsletter all the time. Not only that, but over the next month through the end of the season, I'm still sending out the 15 Transactions newsletter, the data dump, and then David Kitchen does a wrap up email at the end of each week. Also, with that newsletter, you'll get notified when I need to add to existing content. For instance, with yesterday's 15 Transactions episode, I sent out an email letting people know that I had missed Devon Singletary as a transaction. My current man-cold is making my brain work a little bit slower, so I missed Singletary on the Transactions show. But I did add it later on, and then I sent that notification via the newsletter. Anyway, check it all out, lateround.com. It's absolutely free. Just click newsletter at the top of the page. Now let's get to these trends.
We now have another data point with this Patriots' backfield journey, and it's not the best one for Trevion Henderson managers. In week 12 against the Bengals, the game where Ramondre Stevenson returned to the lineup, Trevion Henderson had a 72% running back rush share and a 12% target share. He had great peripherals. But against the Giants on Monday night, that running back rush share, it fell to 48%. That was his lowest mark since week 8 Meanwhile, Ramondre Stevenson saw a snap share go from 31% in week 12 to 61% in week 13 Henderson's fell from 64% to 48%. Now, the Patriots were clearly trying to get Henderson involved in the past game. He had a 13% target share. He's had really good target share numbers over his last five games. So that's good. That'll keep him afloat in PPR leagues. The problem, though, in week 13, Ramondre Stevenson still ran more routes than Travion Henderson. I mean, at this point, it's a pretty unpredictable backfield, and it's highly unlikely we're going to see the week 10, week 11 usage from Henderson that he was getting without Stevenson. With that being said, and I've noted this before, both players can be fantasy relevant. Henderson's the kind of back who can make splash plays. So 12 to 15 touches in a game can still give them a ceiling. And their schedule is still really good. They've got to buy this week, but then it's the Bills, Ravens and Jets to close the fantasy season. That's not bad. But yeah, if I were coaching New England, this split would favor Travion Henderson more. I don't think Henderson should be like an 80% running back rush air player, and he's had his issues in past pro. But I really think that he should be in that like 60-65% range. Not just by the eye test either. Just look at what happened in week 13 Henderson had 3 of his 11 rushes go for 10 or more yards. Stevenson didn't have any. Henderson had a rushing yards over expected per attempt rate of plus 1.4. Stevenson was at minus 0.1. Henderson had a 45.5% success rate. Stevenson was at 25%. On the season, it's completely night and day. Rushing yards over expected per rush. Henderson, plus 0.6. Stevenson, plus 0.1. Yards after contact per attempt. Henderson, 3.6. Stevenson, 2.5. 10 plus yard run rate. Henderson, 9.3%. Stevenson, 5.9%. Success rate. This is a binary thing. It's either you were successful on a run or you weren't successful. This is a metric that a player like Ramandre Stevenson should be good at. But Henderson has a 42.6% success rate. Stevenson, 29.7%. You can only do so much as a fantasy manager. As I always say, running back comes down to how a team just wants to divvy up a backfield. And right now, despite the talent discrepancy, this is what New England wants to do. And it's likely because they just want a bruiser back there who can pass pro. But if you want more takes on pass protection, I did tweet about it on Tuesday. You can check my Twitter account at late round QB. That pass pro stuff is for another episode though. Now, I know I say all of that about the Patriots backfield, but it's not like they've been bad offensively or anything. Clearly things are working. I just am arguing that it can work even better. And a similar argument can be made for Stefan Diggs. His usage recently has been really awful. Over his last two games, he's seen target shares of 9% and 13%. That's after having 28% and 33% target shares in his two games prior. And one of the big issues, he's quite literally just not being used as much. In week 12, he had a route share of 54%. That's horrible. That was his lowest route participation rate of the season. In week 13, it was not that much better. It was 61%. This could very easily be a game script thing. Or the Patriots just saving Stefan Diggs. We'll see what happens if they fall behind in some games. But Diggs has the highest yards per hour run rate on that Patriots team. He clearly could be doing more.