Week 11 Fantasy Football Market Share Report: Samaje Perine Reemerges

Rushing Market Shares

1. Samaje Perine Should See Massive Volume

There are some situations in which talent just doesn't matter a lick. The best example is when a player is forced into massive volume on a team with an efficient quarterback and good surroundings.

That's where Samaje Perine is right now. If he can continue the individual improvements he flashed Sunday, he could be a monster down the stretch.

For Perine, there's just no competition left. Washington placed Rob Kelley on injured reserve last week, and then our love affair with Chris Thompson came to an unfortunate halt in Week 11.

Football can really suck sometimes.

For Perine, though, this presents an opportunity. After Thompson's injury, Perine handled 10 carries and 1 target, representing 42.3% of the team's overall carries plus targets in that span. That's a huge workload. Granted, most of that came while Washington was trying to milk clock with a late lead, but it's still noteworthy.

This increased volume for Perine comes on the heels of easily his best game of the season. In Weeks 2 and 3, Perine turned a combined 40 carries into 116 yards on the ground. Sunday, he had 117 yards on just 23 carries. That did come against a New Orleans Saints defense ranked dead last against the rush, according to numberFire's schedule-adjusted Net Expected Points (NEP) metric, but it's still at least encouraging.

This puts us in a situation where we should be buying Perine aggressively ahead of Week 12. He has the potential to be the every-down back in an offense that Kirk Cousins has commanded well each of the past three years. The offensive line is almost back to full health, so this is a good situation for him, and the buying window isn't shut just yet.

Perine's $7,600 on FanDuel for the Thanksgiving slate, which is going to seem massive at first glance. But would you pay that for a potential workhorse in an efficient offense if you didn't know about Perine's early-season struggles? The odds are that you would say yes. This means that while Perine may not be a value there for this week, we certainly at least have to consider him with the massive volume potential within his reach.

2. The Bengals Are Giving Joe Mixon Chances

For Perine, this opportunity is fresh. For his former Oklahoma Sooners backfield mate, Joe Mixon, it has been developing for a while. And it means we need to take a long look at Mixon, no matter how stagnant the Cincinnati Bengals' offense may be.

Over the past three games, the Bengals have funneled 38.6% of the team's total opportunities Mixon's direction. Among running backs in action this week, that's the third-highest mark in the league behind Le'Veon Bell and Adrian Peterson. This includes 73.7% of the team's carries and 12.0% of their targets, meaning he's dipping his toes in both departments.

It's probably not a coincidence that these three games are the same three the team has played without Jeremy Hill, who is now on injured reserve. With one fewer mouth to feed, Mixon has gotten a bigger share of the pie. And a 38.6% overall market share is pretty meaty. But it doesn't erase the struggles Mixon has had.

So far, just 34.7% of Mixon's carries have increased the team's expected points for the drive, also known as his Success Rate. Although that's roughly five percentage points higher than both Hill and Giovani Bernard, it's still below the league average of 37.4%. That would seem to indicate that this stems from the team's offensive line issues more than any shortcomings by Mixon, but that's not something they'll be fixing before season's end. We should expect these inefficiencies to linger.

With this in mind, we do need to bump up our valuation of Mixon going forward. He's getting tons of volume, and the team has no reason to alter that. But we should also expect him to struggle to generate huge chunks of yardage. As such, Mixon is a buy candidate at $6,200 on FanDuel for Week 12 (even in a poor matchup with the Cleveland Browns), but we have to buy knowing that we're getting someone whose upside is capped by his situation.

3. Can Alex Collins Fend Off Danny Woodhead?

Danny Woodhead was the talk of the town for the Baltimore Ravens heading into Week 11, rejoining the team off of injured reserve for a matchup with the Green Bay Packers. But in Woodhead's return, it was Alex Collins who stole the show.

Not only did Collins finish the game with 20 carries (out of 24 total by the team's running backs, 1 of which went to Woodhead), but he also led the team with 7 targets. Collins had five targets the entire season heading into that. Of course his usage spiked after Woodhead came back. Why not.

Not only did Collins get more targets than Woodhead, but he ran more routes, too.

This could absolutely be a fluke with Woodhead playing his first game since Week 1. But if it's not, Collins could start to beast out.

The passing-game usage wasn't the only new trick up Collins' sleeve. Previously, the team had resisted giving him red-zone work after repeated fumbles put him in the dog house. Sunday was different as Collins had three rushes inside the 20-yard line. Javorius Allen had one, as well, and Woodhead had two targets, but Collins now has three red-zone carries in consecutive games. This gives a healthy boost to his upside while the carries and targets elevate his floor.

The Ravens' defense has been lights out at times this year, meaning they'll rarely be in grotesquely negative game script. This should allow them to keep running the ball if they want to. Even with Woodhead back in the mix, Collins is trending up in a hurry and a guy to watch going forward.