When getting exposure to the Patriots' offense, more often than not, it's best to get it via guys like Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Brandin Cooks, Chris Hogan, and Danny Amendola. Every single one of those guys is in play this week. But everybody knows that, and you're not getting price discounts on them, either.
The running backs, however, don't come with hefty price tags. It'll be frustrating deciding which you want to play, but they all get you low-cost access to the team with the highest implied team total of the week. There are certainly worse headaches.
The reason we can even consider looking at this mind-numbing committee in the first place is that the Falcons are just putrid against the rush. They're 30th in Adjusted Defensive Rushing NEP per play, having just allowed Jay Ajayi to rack up 130 yards despite losing center Mike Pouncey early in the game. That's sub-optimal.
On top of that, they just bleed targets to opposing backfields. Tarik Cohen's breakout happened against this defense as he had 12 targets, Theo Riddick had nine, and Ty Montgomery had seven. So you can run the ball against them, and you can get yardage through the air. That sets up well for this group.
That brings us down to the question of which guy we should target. You can likely go one of two ways with Dion Lewis or James White.
Here are the weekly snap rates of those two plus the corpse of Mike Gillislee. This should make it pretty clear which guys are trending which direction.
| Weekly Snap Rates | James White | Mike Gillislee | Dion Lewis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | 53.1% | 29.6% | 7.4% |
| Week 2 | 39.5% | 39.5% | 18.4% |
| Week 3 | 48.4% | 32.8% | 18.8% |
| Week 4 | 61.4% | 25.7% | 20.0% |
| Week 5 | 47.3% | 32.4% | 24.3% |
| Week 6 | 42.6% | 19.1% | 42.6% |
Chris Carson has been on injured reserve since October 2nd, and he has played 24 more snaps than Gillislee. Gillislee should catch him by Christmas.
The good thing here is that -- even with Gillislee still allegedly existing -- both White and Lewis have been getting opportunities in the red zone. Here are their weekly opportunities (touches plus targets) inside the 20 this year.
| Weekly Red-Zone Opportunities | James White | Dion Lewis |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | 6 | 0 |
| Week 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Week 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Week 4 | 1 | 4 |
| Week 5 | 4 | 1 |
| Week 6 | 2 | 1 |
Lewis had a goal-line touchdown in Week 6 and a score from 13 yards out in Week 4. It seems as if Lewis is giving Gillislee a run for his money as being the team's short-yardage ringer, helping give him plenty of viability for fantasy.
That said, Lewis isn't a sure-fire guy, either. Rex Burkhead could return to action, and adding another mouth into the fold would likely damage Lewis before it harmed White. But Lewis is at least in consideration at $5,500, especially if Burkhead sits again.
As for White, his value is a bit more separate from that of Burkhead because of his role. He has 28 targets the past three weeks, four of which have come in the red zone. For just $4,800, he seems to be the guy we'd want to target here, even if he doesn't have overwhelming upside.