Antonio Gibson is a stud: Week 5 Rookie Stock Update
One-quarter of the season gone folks, just like that. Glass half-full, we still have three-quarters left. And this is about the time where your league mates are starting to get fed up of that shiny new rookie toy sitting on their bench and not giving them any points. They’re clearly not as good as everyone said they were, might as well drop them, that bench space is becoming prime real-estate with all these injuries biting. Get ready….
As noted in my introduction to this series, each week I’m going to do a stock take on the rookies, review how they’re progressing and speculate on their outlook for the rest of the season.
Here is the Week 5 rookie stock update.
Starters
Quarterback
- Joe Burrow
- Justin Herbert
He’s had losses of three points, five points and a tie in his first three career games and now Joe Burrow has his first win. It doesn’t look like he really needed to work up much of a sweat in this one, throwing 36 times (his joint lowest of his fledgling career). He completed 69-percent of those attempts for 300 yards and a touchdown, not too shabby. But this game was over in the third quarter and he let Joe Mixon have his day, with the Bengals lowest pass-to-run ratio of the season so far (51-percent passing). He’ll have tougher games…starting with a trip to Baltimore next week.
I lost count how many times I heard about the age gap between Justin Herbert and Tom Brady in the LA/Tampa game on Sunday night, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that it was about the elder statesman showing the rookie how it’s done. Well Brady got the win and five passing touchdowns in a monster day, but it was still Herbert that got everyone talking. For a guy who many (including me) expected to be warming the bench for a while, he is taking his opportunity and giving himself every chance to be named the starter from here on. Anthony Lynn continues to play it down to the consternation of many, but I suspect it’s a combination of expectation management for the kid and guilt/panic about what happened to Tyrod.
The Chargers managed to get back to running the ball so Herbert only had to throw 25 times on Sunday night. However, he turned those throws in to 290 yards with an 80-percent completion rate and 12-percent touchdown rate (if you’re not sure, that’s good!). And he’s not afraid to sling it, with some beautiful downfield throws for those touchdowns. Leave him in coach.
Running Back
- Clyde Edwards-Helaire
- Jonathan Taylor
- Antonio Gibson
- Joshua Kelley
- D’Andre Swift
- JK Dobbins
- James Robinson
| Clyde Edwards-Helaire | ||
| Snaps | 41 (73-percent) | Last Week: 52 (69-percent) |
| Carries | 16 (64-percent) | Last Week: 20 (65-percent of team total) |
| Redzone carries | 2 (67-percent) | Last week: 2 (67-percent of team total) |
| Opp 1-10 carries | 1 (50-percent) | Last week: 1 (50-percent of team total) |
| Targets | 3 (10-percent) | Last week: 6 (14-percent of team total) |
CEH is well and truly the RB1 in this team and Andy Reid has trusted him to carry the load in big time matchups over the last two weeks. There may be some questions about the 64-percent workload but all but one of the remaining carries was Patrick Mahomes scrambling. Add in a few targets out of the backfield that CEH handled with poise and you can see how important he is going to be to this team.
The one concern with CEH over the past couple of weeks has been touchdowns. As we know, Mahomes isn’t afraid to throw the ball and CEH has struggled to move the pile in short-yardage situations so far. He’ll either have to improve in this area or we’ll be relying on him to get Touchdowns from breakaway runs and passing plays. Easier matchups will be coming for CEH and you can continue to trust him as a low end RB1.
| Jonathan Taylor | ||
| Snaps | 33 (46-percent) | Last Week: 24 (40-percent) |
| Carries | 17 (45-percent) | Last Week: 13 (42-percent of team total) |
| Redzone carries | 3 (33-percent) | Last Week: 5 (83-percent of team total) |
| Opp 1-10 carries | 1 (33-percent) | Last Week: 3 (75-percent of team total) |
| Targets | 1 (3-percent) | Last Week: 1 (4-percent) of team total) |
It’s been a rollercoaster so far with Taylor. We came in to the season patiently knowing that he was sharing this backfield but then Mack went down injured and everyone was convinced that the job was automatically his. But that’s not really what we’ve seen so far. What we’ve actually seen is the shared backfield we came in to the season with, but it’s Jordan Wilkins instead of Marlon Mack. He’s in a timeshare and he’s still a rookie who has just played his fourth NFL game.
His snapshare is fairly stable week on week, his share of the carries remains less than 50-percent and he’s splitting the redzone opportunities. He’s also clearly not trusted in the passing game yet with one target in week 4 to add to his three targets in the previous two weeks combined. This is a lesson in not getting carried away too early and re-igniting that patience that we started the year with.
| Antonio Gibson | ||
| Snaps | 31 (44-percent) | Last Week: 26 (40-percent of team total) |
| Carries | 13 (59-percent) | Last Week: 9 (41-percent of team total) |
| Redzone carries | 4 (57-percent) | Last Week: 2 (67-percent of team total) |
| Opp 1-10 carries | 3 (50-percent) | Last Week: 1 (50-percent of team total) |
| Targets | 5 (11-percent) | Last Week: 3 (8-percent of team total) |
My name is Matt and I was an Antonio Gibson doubter. My name is Matt and I was an…..
The first step is acknowledging the issue, I’ve done that, I’ve seen the light. Gibson is the main back in Washington and he continues to impress. Faded by many going in to a game against a tough Baltimore run defense with Washington likely to be in negative gamescript, Gibson showed that none of that matters.
His snap share was up from week 3 and his share of the carries ticked up too. His only real competition for running back snaps is JD McKissic so that shouldn’t be too scary. McKissic is still the receiving back of choice but, like everything else, Gibson’s targets ticked up this week too. This feels very much like a gradual increase of role for Gibson and one that’s proving fruitful with both a rushing touchdown and receiving touchdown in each of his last three games. If this momentum keeps building like it is, it’s going to be hard to stop.
| Joshua Kelley | ||
| Snaps | 30 (57-percent) | Last Week: 23 (29-percent of team total) |
| Carries | 9 (39-percent) | Last Week: 8 (35-percent of team total) |
| Redzone carries | 0 (team total = 0) | Last Week: 1 (50-percent of team total) |
| Opp 1-10 carries | 0 (team total = 0) | Last Week: 0 (team total = 0) |
| Targets | 3 (12-percent) | Last Week: 2 (4-percent of team total) |
We’re really bouncing around with Kelley but the trend over the last two weeks has not been a good one. Even with Ekeler leaving the game early with injury, the opportunity didn’t open up for Kelley. Justin Jackson was back for the Chargers and he took a big chunk of work away from him. Outside of Ekeler, this backfield is a mess and although LA look happy to run it, you just can’t trust that Kelley is going to be the guy to do it.
| D’Andre Swift | ||
| Snaps | 23 (38-percent) | Last Week: 6 (9-percent of team total) |
| Carries | 4 (18-percent) | Last Week: 0 (0-percent of team total) |
| Redzone carries | 0 (0-percent) | Last Week: 0 (0-percent of team total) |
| Opp 1-10 carries | 0 (0-percent) | Last Week: 0 (0-percent of team total) |
| Targets | 4 (13-percent) | Last Week: 2 (6-percent of team total) |
Better. Slightly. The good news, Swift jumped from 9-percent of offensive snaps to 38-percent and they let him carry the ball this week. The bad news, it was only four carries and four targets.
The four targets is promising but at only 18-percent of the carries, Patricia seems intent on helping Adrian Peterson catch Barry Sanders for 4th on the all-time rushing list. Unless he wears down or gets injured, that doesn’t look like changing any time soon. As with some of the other rookie running backs, patience is going to continue to be the way to go with Swift. There will be some frustrated owners out there who may need to free up some roster space, keep an eye out for him landing on waivers. It’s amazing how quickly things can change, with a bit more time and if there is a coaching change then Swift could become a useable fantasy piece later in the year.
| JK Dobbins | ||
| Snaps | 21 (37-percent) | Last Week: 24 (43-percent of team total) |
| Carries | 5 (32-percent) | Last Week: 1 (21-percent of team total) |
| Redzone carries | 0 | Last Week: 0 |
| Opp 1-10 carries | 0 | Last Week: 0 |
| Targets | 2 (9-percent) | Last Week: 4 (4-percent of team total) |
Another messy backfield, another rookie running back who is going to need an injury to get a useful shot in 2020. And even then, it will still be messy. Sharing the backfield snaps with Ingram and Edwards, and sharing the touches with them and Lamar Jackson, it’s a long road through the depth chart for Dobbins. He does continue to get NFL experience and he’ll have a game here or there where he’ll pop, but it’s the long game for JK for now.
| James Robinson | ||
| Snaps | 52 (76-percent) | Last Week: 30 (45-percent of team total) |
| Carries | 17 (85-percent) | Last Week: 11 (65-percent of team total) |
| Redzone carries | 0 (team total = 0) | Last Week: 2 (100-percent of team total) |
| Opp 1-10 carries | 0 (team total = 0) | Last Week: 1 (100-percent of team total) |
| Targets | 4 (10-percent) | Last Week: 6 (14-percent of team total) |
This still isn’t a good team that we’d generally want to tie ourselves to but workhorse backs are not easy to come by and James Robinson is exactly that. He got 85-percent of the carries in week four, 100-percent of running back carries (the remaining 15-percent was from Minshew and Shenault). And 76-percent of snaps is huge, especially for a rookie in his 4th game. He’s getting targets out of the backfield and although he didn’t get the touchdowns this week, he’s a good shot to score each and every week. Confidence is increasing and while it might be taking a while to get used to it, he’s an absolute locked-in starter for your fantasy team.
Wide Receiver
- Jerry Jeudy
- CeeDee Lamb
- Laviska Shenault
- Brandon Aiyuk
- KJ Hamler
- Justin Jefferson
- Tee Higgins
An interesting game for Jeudy, getting his first NFL touchdown on an underthrown ball that he had no right to catch. That’s got to give him confidence. Outside of that, he again only managed a 50-percent catch rate, this time on his lowest number of targets this year (four). With Brett Rypien under centre, there was clearly a connection with Tim Patrick who out-targeted Jeudy along with Noah Fant. Injuries continue to decimate this receiving corp though, with Hamler and Fant now added to the list. This will mean increased volume for Jeudy so if he can start to bring in a few more of those throws, he’ll continue to climb.
Lamb’s snap count took a jump back up after a reduction in week 3 (most likely due to injury) and he turned that in to his first two touchdowns for Dallas. As a percentage, his 12-percent target share doesn’t look too great but when you combine that with the insane amount of times that Dak is throwing the ball, that’s plenty. Dallas will continue to roll-out a high powered offense with multiple options and they will go to the receiver that can get himself open in any given week. This week it was Lamb, and with him hauling in the two touchdowns in the way he did, he might just start to become one of the trusted end-zone targets for Dak.
Interestingly, Shenault has put up ‘pairs’ of games so far. In weeks 1 and 2 he got 4 targets for 3 catches in each game, in weeks 3 and 4 he got 6 targets for 5 catches in each. So 9 targets for 6 catches in week 5??? He looked good and actually managed to get above 37 yards for the first time, so you can definitely see the improvements. He might not be giving you the 150 yards, two touchdown games just yet but I’m not convinced he’s really that kind of receiver. He’s versatile, he’ll help Minshew out of some spots and he’ll get his share of touchdowns. He’s not a volume receiver and this offense seems to want to spread the ball around, but there’s definitely some positive signs for Shenault.
Talking of versatile receivers that aren’t volume plays, Brandon Aiyuk. I warned last week that with Kittle, Samuel and Mostert coming back, he wouldn’t be a trustable fantasy asset in the short term. Well two of those three played this week and Aiyuk didnt really do much. He did get a rushing TD again on his solitary carry but he only caught two balls for 18 yards in the air. He played 88-percent of the snaps so he’s definitely one of their key receivers, and Shanahan will scheme up some big plays for him every week. But he’s going to be volatile.
Week 4 One-to-Watch: KJ Hamler
Beware the curse of my ‘One-to-Watch’ label. For week 3, I noted Michael Pittman Jr and he went down injured. In week 4, I noted KJ Hamler and….he went down injured. I was excited about his opportunity with Sutton out but this team continues to catch bad injury luck and Hamler is the latest.
Week 4 One-to-Watch: Justin Jefferson
The second of my One-to-Watch players, and this one didn’t get injured. I don’t think… {checks the injury report}…all good! Although the Texans aren’t exactly the league’s best defense at the minute, the Vikings look like they’re recapturing their identity after a rough start to the season. That is, in no small part, thanks to Justin Jefferson. His offensive snap share is in the high 70s and he’s posted back to back games of 100 yards receiving.
I expect him to have boom and bust games as he appears to be moulding in to the Stefon Diggs role from last season, and that’s the nature of that role with the deep targets. His next two games are against Seattle and Atlanta so if you still have an opportunity to get him cheap you’ll need to do it fast. By the way, I told you to buy-low on Adam Thielen last week and he just posted 114 yards and a touchdown.
Tee Higgins calmed down a little after his week 3 explosion, in a game where the Bengals were largely in control and let Joe Mixon dictate proceedings. He was out-snapped by AJ Green this time around but not out-targeted. He’s consistently getting a healthy target share now and in games where the Bengals need to throw more (which could be most of them), Higgins could still be a useful asset. Something tells me he’s going to be a consistent number two (behind Boyd) in this likely pass-heavy offense, with plenty of opportunity in the redzone. It’s going to be tough sledding against the Ravens and Colts in the next two games so he isn’t a must-add if you don’t have the bench space, but if you do have room to stash him then I’m absolutely doing it.
Injury Issues
- Zack Moss (RB)
- Cam Akers (RB)
- Henry Ruggs (WR)
- Jalen Reagor (WR)
- Denzel Mims (WR)
- Michael Pittman Jr (WR)
- Bryan Edwards (WR)
I promise to stop cursing these receivers and making this list grow. No sign of return for any of these guys at this stage, but with hopes that Moss and Akers aren’t too far away it could end up being a receivers-only injury list before long, adding Hamler to the list for next week.
I’ll keep an eye on these guys coming back and we can hopefully start to see some action in the not-too-distant future.
LONGER-TERM PLAY WITH EARLY QUESTION MARKS
- Chase Claypool (WR)
- Van Jefferson (WR)
- Gabriel Davis (WR)
Thanks to some Covid issues in Tennessee, we didn’t get to see Chase Claypool this week and will have to wait to week 5 to see what he brings. What that does do, is give Diontae Johnson another week to get back on the field and keep a lid on Claypool’s playing time.
Aaaaaaaand he’s gone. Van Jefferson played 3 snaps for 1 target and 0 catches. That’s 11 snaps, 2 targets and 0 catches in the last two games. He’s fourth on the depth chart on a Rams team that is re-establishing its identity, and that identity doesn’t include him at this stage. You’ll see him on my backups list from now on.
With a fully fit John Brown, Gabriel Davis only saw one target in week 4. However, that sole target was a 26 yard touchdown catch for the first score of the game. He didn’t see the ball again after that but he did play on 59-percent of offensive snaps which was only topped by Diggs and Brown from a receiving perspective. He’s definitely next man up and looks dynamic on the field, I’m excited for what lies ahead for Davis and I’ll be running to the waiver wire if anything happens to Brown or Diggs.
Tua-Watch (Potential Late Season Plays)
- Tua Tagovailoa (QB)
Good news, Tua was active after concerns of injury during the week. That bench got nice and warm. His time will come.
Backup – not this year without an injury
- Jordan Love (QB)
- Jalen Hurts (QB)
- Jacob Eason (QB)
- James Morgan (QB)
- Ke’Shawn Vaughn (RB)
- Darrynton Evans (RB)
- La’Mical Perine (RB)
- Anthony McFarland Jr (RB)
- DeeJay Dallas (RB)
- AJ Dillon (RB)
- Lynn Bowden (RB)
- Devin Duvernay (WR)
- Antonio Gandy-Golden (WR)
- Quintez Cephus (WR)
With LeSean McCoy picking up an injury and Fournette out, Ke’Shawn Vaughn got on the field for his first offensive snaps in Tampa. It was a handful of unspectacular touches but he did manage to catch a touchdown. We’ll see if he gets any more work if this backfield remains banged up.
Perine and Dallas got a handful of touches while Dillon and Bowden got one touch each. Devin Duvernay is getting the most work out of the receivers but still only a couple of targets for a catch and nothing to show for it. Neither Gandy-Golden or Cephus saw a target on their handful of snaps, with Cephus getting some special teams work now. Evans and McFarland had an unexpected bye with the Covid issues in Tennessee.
Jalen Hurts got four snaps as the Eagles inexplicably lined Carson Wentz up as a Tight End. He hasn’t thrown the ball yet but rushed three times for 18 yards and fumbled for the second game in a row. The Eagles are trying to scheme him on to the field but it’s not very effective at this stage.
Special Tight End Category
- Devin Asiasi
- Cole Kmet
- Josiah Deguara
- Dalton Keene
- Adam Trautman
- Harrison Bryant
- Albert Okwuegbunam
- Colby Parkinson
- Brycen Hopkins
As you were with Asiasi playing some snaps but not as a receiving TE, and Keene still hasn’t seen the field for New England.
Cole Kmet’s snap share dipped to 24-percent with a single target for no catches, while Adam Trautman didn’t see a single target despite the Jared Cook injury.
Deguara got back on the field after two weeks of injury but managed to get injured again towards the end of this one. Rough for Deguara.
Harrison Bryant got his highest snap share (69-percent), target share (four), receptions (four), and yards (37) which is promising but still not a useable piece for your fantasy team.
Injury continues to keep out Albert O and Colby Parkinson while Brycen Hopkins was once again a healthy scratch – copy, paste from previous weeks.
Week Five
The second tier of receivers are starting to fully establish themselves as strong parts of their teams now, whilst most of the rookie running backs are settling in to less exciting roles after early season explosions.
You can continue to play Joe Burrow and you can start Justin Herbert if you need, but expect some weekly volatility. CEH, Taylor and Robinson are low end RB1/high end RB2 plays, and Gibson is an RB2 you can start with confidence. You can continue to start Lamb and Jeudy with varying degrees of confidence, with Justin Jefferson now in this mix as well.
The rookie running backs are intriguing to keep an eye on and if you have the bench space, consider holding them plus Higgins and Shenault.
The two guys I’m watching closely for this week:
- Joshua Kelley – struggling to establish himself but has the opportunity with the Ekeler injury
- Laviska Shenault – increasing role and a plus matchup against the Texans in week 5
Don’t forget to check back next week to see how these rookie values are changing.
