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Volume is the most important component of fantasy scoring. We have seen time and time again a freak athlete failing to put up fantasy points because he just can't get the ball in his hands. Picking your fantasy players from teams that are known to depend on a small number of players to move the ball will really help your fantasy team, and I'm here today to help you do that.
We hear a lot about target share. This is simply the percent of a team's total targets that a single player gets. We will look at that metric in this post, as well as looking at touch shares, which are rushing attempts plus receptions.
What I have done is gone through every team in the league, finding the total target and touch shares of their top two and top three players in each category. It will become more clear what I did once we get into it. The goal here is to find the teams that are really relying on two or three skill players to move the ball with. Let's see the results.
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Let's look at the leading target share duos. What you see here is each team's top two players in target share, with their target shares added up to see what percentage of their team's total targets are flowing through those two players.
The Rams take the cake here with Cooper Kupp's 33% target share and Robert Woods' 23% mark. Second place is the Seahawks with a much more even split as D.K. Metcalf has earned a 28% share with Lockett right on his heels at 26%. It will be interesting to see if those numbers change at all with Geno Smith now at the helm.
You can see that not all high target shares turn into fantasy points, as the Bears duo of Darnell Mooney and Allen Robinson have not performed very well overall this year. The teams we see at the bottom of the list are mostly teams ravaged by injury. The Titans have seen three missed games from A.J. Brown and Julio Jones (essentially four missed games since Brown left early in week three), and that has really spread the targets all around. Same with the Browns who did not have Odell Beckham Jr. for week one, and then lost Jarvis Landry.
The healthy teams that have been spreading the wealth around would be Washington, Oakland, and then surprisingly the Cowboys and Vikings show up there. Let's go now and add a player to the analysis and see which teams have the leading trios.
Van Jefferson slides in to keep the Rams on the top of the list, and the Ravens climb the list quite a bit while adding Sammy Watkins. We saw huge games from both Mark Andrews and Marquise Brown on Monday Night, and adding on Watkins you get two-thirds of Lamar Jackson's targets this year. It's much of the same at the bottom of the list. I'll let you go ahead and flip through the data, and we'll move on touch shares.
First, we'll take a look at couples to see which teams have the highest percentage of their touches going to their two top players.
I think most people would have successfully guessed that the Titans would top the list here. Derrick Henry leads the NFL in touches by 47, a ludicrous number. He makes up 55% of that 63.6% share all by himself. Next up is the Browns who have once again relied on their running back tandem, handing the ball off to Nick Chubb and throwing short passes to Kareem Hunt as their primary way of moving the ball. The Lions find themselves in the same kind of situation as the Browns, using two running backs a ton and throwing a bunch of balls to them.
What you see more generally on this list is each team's top two running backs. This is just because typically two guys make up close to 100% of the team carries, while that isn't true in the passing game. The teams with wide receivers making this list (Steelers, Texans, Chargers, Chiefs, Bucs, Patriots, Dolphins, 49ers) are either pass-heavy teams or teams with one featured workhorse running back, or both. A wide receiver that is second on his team in touches is a really good sign for the future, as they are being super-prioritized in their team's plans.
Let's check on the same thing here but move to trios.
Davante Adams and his 42 touches bolster the Packers to the #1 spot here, giving 74% of their touches to those three players. The other team to break 70% is the Lions after you include T.J. Hockenson's big target share. At the top of this list, we have some of the most concentrated offenses in the league. There are lots of backup running backs on these teams getting enough work to be considered in deep fantasy leagues.
At the bottom of the list, we find teams that have either experienced a bunch of injuries (49ers, Raiders, Giants) or really like to spread the ball around (Bucs, Patriots, Jets). We also see the teams with running quarterbacks end up in the bottom half of the list just due to a more even split of carries between the QB and the primary RB.
Notes and Conclusion
- With JuJu Smith-Schuster set to miss at least a month, the Steelers will likely move up the target share lists above. Right now the top four of Harris, Johnson, Claypool, and JuJu account for more than 70% of the Steelers targets. I imagine the 14% that JuJu is vacating will be mostly split between those other three names.
- I think the heavy A.J. Dillon usage early on this year has a lot do with game environments. He has 14 of his 38 carries coming in the fourth quarter as the Packers ran out the clock. Aaron Jones is doubling him up in first-down carries (44 to 22), I would expect Jones to function as a 70%+ carry share guy when the games are competitive.
- Teams that don't throw the ball deep really can sustain multiple running backs for fantasy purposes. Jamaal Williams and D'Andre Swift have both been startable players even despite their team's lackluster offenses. This is mostly the case in PPR. Short passes to running backs are completed at high rates and getting a full fantasy point from those plays really adds for your team. Don't be afraid to pick up and start a guy like Williams if you really need someone.
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