Why De'Von Achane Could Be a Top 5 Running Back! | Stats With Sam: The Top 5 Things You NEED to Know for Week 1

Published Sep 5, 2024, 12:00 PM

Sam Hoppen break down five game-changing stats. Discover why Kyle Pitts' role could lead to a breakout season and don't wait to stash Jaylen Wright if he's available in your league! Get ahead of your league with strategic advice and start your season strong!

Timestamps (may be off due to ads):

Intro - 0:00:00
Start your Chicago Bears - 0:00:45
Kyle Pitts - 0:01:29
Samaje Perine - 0:02:29
Miami Dolphins Running Backs  - 0:03:51
Kyren Williams - 0:05:28

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Hello, and welcome to the first installment of Stats with Sam, a new show on Fantasy Pros that will be a weekly recurring microcast during the NFL season, where I Sam Hoppin go over five key stats that stand out to me from a fantasy football perspective to help you all make starter, sit, waiver, or trade decisions, ultimately hoping to get you that championship at the end of the year. I really appreciate all of you tuning into this first episode of the show and hope that I can provide some valuable insights to you each week. But the best way to support this show is by leaving an honest review at Fantasypros dot com slash review and by rating the show wherever you listen to podcasts. So I'm going to start things off talking about a team that has been heavily featured this offseason, the team of hard knocks, the Chicago Bears, who have an implied team total of twenty five points, which is the sixth highest implied total of the week. Now, obviously you drafted DeAndre Swift, DJ Moore, Keenan Allen, and Romo Doomze pretty high, but I would be very comfortable starting all of those players. If you're struggling at running back or punted on the position in your drafts, I would also consider starting Khalil Herbert as they face a Tennessee Titans rush defense that I have graded as a bottom five rush defense unit in the NFL. The next player I want to talk about is Kyle Pitts, who unfortunately is dealing with a hamstring injury but hopefully will play this upcoming week because Joe Patrick from nine to nine The Game reported that during training camp, Pitts was catching balls on shorter routes at times, and this is notable because in his first three seasons, his average depth of target has been ten point eight yards, thirteen point eight yards, and eleven point four yards, which makes for a twelve point two yard average depth of target in his first three years, which is the highest in the league among seventy one tight ends with at least fifty targets since twenty twenty one. So obviously, a shorter depth of target for Pits will mean more catchable balls, which will mean more receptions. And I'm already bullish on Pits this year, but if the correct usage is there week one, then I would be willing to buy high on Kyle Pitts. Following the first week. On Thursday night, we have our first game of the NFL season, and unfortunately the Chiefs will be without Clyde Edwards Hilaire as he is out for four games after being placed on the reserve NFI list, which leaves samajp Ryan and Carson Steele to serve as backups to Isaiah Piccheco. On Tuesday of this week, Nate Taylor said that there's an expectation he is even going to play on Thursday night as the third down running back in regards to p Ryn Now last year on the Broncos. This is from Nate Yankee of PFF. He led the league with the most targets to running backs in the two minute drill last season with thirty two. Now, obviously he's on a different team now, but we know that the Chiefs love to pass the ball. They're going to push to score points as many ways as they can, especially at the end of halfs and at the end of games, and we'll be doing so passing the ball. So I give the edge to samadrip Ryan in the backup role and pass catching role for the Chiefs. So if he is still available on your waiver wire, I would try to scoop him up for Thursday nights game. Another team in the AFC, the Miami Dolphins, heavily feature their running backs and wants to talk about them because last year, the Dolphins used twenty one personnel, which is two running backs, one tight end, and two wide receivers, at the highest rate in the league. Last year, it was about forty one percent of their plays. They kept four total running backs and one fullback on their active roster. This past week, after cutdowns, they also only kept four wide receivers on the roster, and Cameron Wolf, who is a national NFL reporter for NFL Network, has speculated that this could mean more snaps for Devon ah Chan lined up as a wide receiver now. Last year, a Chan ran a route on forty four percent of the team's dropbacks, which is already pretty for a running back, but if it reaches the fifty five to sixty percent mark, then I think a Chan could easily enter the top five running back conversation. This usage with twenty one personnel also makes Jalen write a priority ad for me ahead of the season because he has contingent value if either Raheem Moster or a Chan get injured. With how often the Dolphins are going to be using multiple running backs, he could easily step into a solid role if one of those two running backs go down. I'm going to wrap up today's show with a little bit of Kyron Williams talk. Last week, it was mentioned that kyn Williams was going to be returning punts for the Rams, and there was a lot of consternation over that in the fantasy football community, but Mike of ESPN pointed out that Kyraen Williams handled one hundred percent of the Rams punt returns during weeks one through three last season, and he played eighty six percent of the offensive snaps, had thirty nine carries and nineteen targets during that span. He was then removed from punt returns to be in a feature back role. He also averaged over twenty one fantasy points per game last season, So I think this punt return stuff is a bit of an overreaction, and because of that, I think Kyron is a potential by low heading into Week one. I think if you drafted a couple of weeks ago and the team with Kyron is spooked, then maybe you could make a low ball offer on him to help solidify a running back room with another great running back that projects to see a large workload. The Rams also have one of the better offensive lines in the league, which will help Kyron Williams improve his expected rushing yards. So I'm still I wouldn't say bullish on Kiren, but I am not bearish on Kien by any means, and think he has some own manager spoot who could be looking to sell him. So that is going to do it for the first episode of Stats with Sam. Again, I would really appreciate your feedback and reviews as we get through the season so that I can make this even better for you all, So thank you again. We'll be back next Tuesday with fresh new data to analyze. The NFL is here and I'm excited to get digging into these analytics.

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