Early each week, SportsLine's Fantasy expert Jacob Gibbs will provide a data-driven deep-dive into the usage for every team's running backs and pass-catchers. You can find full team-by-team data on snap counts, target share, routes run, red-zone usage and more for every Fantasy relevant running back, wide receiver and tight end.
Below, Gibbs covers the 10 most important storylines from Week 4 to help provide a better understanding of what we learned and how it will impact the Fantasy outlook of specific teams and players.
If you have questions about any stats, players, or situations covered or not covered in this article, feel free to reach out to Gibbs on Twitter.
With Carlos Hyde sidelined, Robinson played nearly every snap for the Jaguars on Thursday.
Kenny Golladay was a bit banged-up heading into Week 3, and his snap rate was below 70 percent as a result. He logged a season-high snap rate in Week 4.
In his first game back from injury, Darrell Henderson immediately returned to a dominant snap share.
D'Andre Swift's snap rate had fallen from 68 percent in Week 1 to 63 percent in Week 2 and 56 percent in Week 3. So, it was good to see him put in a season-high snap rate in Week 4, even if the production wasn't there.
Rookies Kadarius Toney, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Terrace Marshall, Javonte Williams, and Michael Carter all logged a career-high snap rate in Week 4.
After exciting Week 3 usage, Brandon Aiyuk, Mecole Hardman, and Chuba Hubbard each took a step backward in Week 4.
Chris Carson has shown troubling usage signs in back-to-back weeks. I expect that he will have fallen outside of the top 15 at the RB position in my rest of season rankings, which will be published on Wednesday.
Cordarelle Patterson and Tony Pollard have gotten by on elite efficiency thus far, but it hasn't led to any additional opportunities. In fact, both players logged a season-low snap rate in Week 4.
No stat correlates more closely with Fantasy scoring at the RB position than snap rate.
The Rams got right back to feeding Darrell Henderson one of the best roles of any RB in the entire NFL in his first game back from injury. Also worth noting: the Dolphins continue to move away from Myles Gaskin and toward Malcolm Brown; that preference has been made especially clear when in the red zone.
A player's route involvement rate simply represents the percentage of the team's total dropbacks on which that player ran a route. So, the running backs listed above all have run a route on at least 59 percent of their team's dropbacks. Running routes is the first step towards drawing targets, which is key to unlocking Fantasy upside at the RB position.
When allowed to run routes, the above running backs have been targeted at the highest rate. For reference, James White led the position with a 35 percent TPRR rate in 2020, and only three backs were targeted on more than 30 percent of their routes. Cordarelle Patterson's rate is nearly guaranteed to come down.
These receivers have shown a unique ability to dominate both the target and air yardage share.
Tyreek Hill, Terry McLaurin, and DK Metcalf all had their quarterbacks locked in on them as downfield targets in Week 4. Combining dominant target shares with downfield route running can lead to absolutely massive air yardage totals, as we saw from each of these alpha receivers in Week 4.
Target per route run (TPRR) rate correlates with Fantasy scoring at the WR position at one of the highest rates of any stat available. I covered the topic in more detail this offseason, if you are unfamiliar.
Players like T.J. Hockenson, Mark Andrews, and Kyle Pitts haven't needed a massive target per route run rate, because they are running so many routes. This type of route involvement provides massive upside for those guys if their TPRR rate rises.
Running lots of routes and being targeted at a high rate on those routes generally leads to Fantasy production. Noah Fant ranking as high as he does on these two lists is certainly exciting.
So which underrated receiver is demanding an incredible amount of targets? And which hot Fantasy RB isn't getting the important snaps in his offense? ... Join SportsLine here to see Jacob Gibbs' What We Learned from Week 4 feature, all from one of the nation's most accurate experts as graded by FantasyPros!
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