At the beginning of the year, things were looking grim from an injury perspective for the Carolina Panthers. Offensive linemen were dropping left and right, and it made it look like Christian McCaffrey's impeccable preseason usage would be for naught.
But somehow, McCaffrey got through that storm into the team's bye, and now things are starting to trend up again.
Back in Week 3, McCaffrey had easily the biggest rushing day of his career. He turned 28 carries into a whopping 184 yards as the Panthers toppled the Cincinnati Bengals. They played that game without the team's preseason projected starters at left tackle, center, right guard, and right tackle.
Despite those losses, McCaffrey is currently 16th in Rushing Success Rate out of 46 running backs with at least 25 carries. He has been efficient while getting massive volume. And he'll be getting some help up front back this weekend.
G Trai Turner arrives at practice with helmet in hand. Missed two games with concussion.
— Max Henson (@PanthersMax) October 1, 2018
That bodes well for McCaffrey this week against the New York Giants.
In the past, the Giants have had a stout rush defense, but that has not carried over into 2018. They rank 29th in Adjusted Defensive Rushing NEP per play after giving up 134 yards and 3 touchdowns to Alvin Kamara last week. This time, they're on the road and facing a team that is fresh off its bye.
Truthfully, McCaffrey wouldn't need efficiency to be in play with all the volume that he gets. Efficiency is just a nice bonus on the top.
In that 28-carry game for McCaffrey, he wound up getting just 2 targets. In today's NFL, we need our running backs to get targets, so that part was a bit disappointing.
But even with that low output, McCaffrey still has 27.6% of the Panthers' targets this year. That is the highest mark for a running back on the main slate by more than four percentage points. He may have the best workload in the entire league.
That volume makes McCaffrey superbly viable for cash games in Week 5. The matchup with the Giants and the return of Turner make him viable for tournaments, as well.
McCaffrey doesn't figure to come at low ownership, but we don't need him to. His floor is high enough to decrease the bust rate, and his $8,100 salary is likely lower than where it should be based on his role. This all combines to mean we should swallow any ownership that comes with McCaffrey and plug him into our lineups in all formats.