1071: 10 Trends for Week 16

**JJ Zachariason** (0:02)
This is The Late-Round Podcast with your host, JJ Zachariason.
What's up everyone, it's JJ Zachariason, and this is episode 1071 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. This is the last week of regular content for the podcast given the holiday, and I know the season is about to end. However, make sure you don't miss out on anything going on during the off season, by subscribing to the Late-Round Newsletter. There's a lot going on with Late-Round Fantasy Football, and the newsletter, that's one way to stay on top of it all. Just head to lateround.com, click Newsletter, sign up today for absolutely free. Now, let's get to these 10 trends.
I feel like I have to talk about Kyle Pitts and what's been going on with him, since he casually dropped over 45 PPR points on Thursday night. Now, I could get into how historic that game was, how it was one of the best tight-end performances in NFL history. But beyond all of that, beyond the fact that he beat his previous single game high in PPR points by almost 20, Pitts has just been trending in the right direction without Drake London in the lineup. He's seen target shares of 25%, 26%, 35% and 29% in his last four games, and earlier this year without London, he had a 30% share. Even before that 45-point outing, he had scored 15 and 15 PPR points in his previous two games. Pitts is obviously a must-start player as long as London is out. Just keep in mind, that target share drops to about 19% with London in the lineup, and there's at least some chance that he goes this week. It's just early, so I have no idea. The Rams are almost definitely going to finish the season with the lowest running back target share in the league. Again. They have a 10.2% target share right now through 15 weeks. That's actually a little bit lower than what we typically see from them, but not by much, because over their last six seasons entering this one, the Rams have ranked 32nd, 30th, 32nd, 31st, 32nd, and 32nd in running back target share, and now they're 32nd once again. Now, Kyron Williams has been fine for his cost in fantasy, but man, managers are really lucky that that offense is cooking the way that it's cooking, because he's not seeing the kind of volume that he's gotten in the past, but he's finding the end zone plenty. Now speaking of running back target shares, one change that we saw with the Colts this past weekend with Philip Rivers under center was more looks to the running backs through the air. Colts running backs had nearly a 35% target share against the Seahawks. Now Seattle does have a high adjusted target share allowed to running backs. It's the second highest in the league. But Rivers, he also doesn't have the strongest arm. We'd expect more dump offs, and that's what we saw. That 35% target share was the highest mark of the season for them. Their previous high was just 21%. And that right there could keep Jonathan Taylor afloat in PPR formats. I called Troy Franklin a drop on last week's 15 Transactions episode, and then it was announced later in the week that Pat Bryant was out. So, I took that back real quick. But regardless, the production was there for Franklin in week 15 But the usage, it was still down in general. Even without Pat Bryant, Franklin ran fewer routes than Lil Jordan Humphrey. Now, he did see a 19% target share, he scored 21 PPR points, so again, he was fine. But I do think everyone needs to be aware that Franklin is not seeing the kind of work, at least from a route share perspective, that he was earlier this year. He's been below a 70% route share in each of his last three. His route share before all of this was 80%. In order for wide receivers to see targets, they need to run routes. So despite his production in week 15, this is still a concerning trend for Troy Franklin. The Chargers' backfield sort of continued its week 14 ways into week 15 Kamani Vidal did out snap Marion Hampton 42 to 24 against Kansas City. That's a pretty big delta. But Hampton's seeing more ground game work. He outrushed Vidal 15 to 12 Now that snap share difference, that exists because Vidal's seeing more work on the clear passing downs. Likely for pass pro reasons. According to FantasyLife data, he's seen every 2 minute snap over the last 2 weeks with Hampton back. He's seen the field on about 90% of their long down and distance snaps. And that's 100% capping a Marion Hampton ceiling.