Week 6 Fantasy Football Backfield Report

Another week has quickly come and gone, with a few exciting games, including that massive shootout between the Kansas City Chiefs and New England Patriots. Data trends are getting stronger as teams have mainly figured out their identities, and it is important for us to use that information to our advantage.

Back for another review of the backfields across the league that do not heavily feature one specific back. Week 6 shed some more light on some messy backfield situations, as well as made other situations even more uncertain.

Minimal changes have been made to the data tables this week besides the removal of the Week 6 bye week teams New Orleans Saints and Detroit Lions.

This weekly piece is here to help fantasy owners see how coaching staffs are deploying their backs in terms of volume and high leverage situations.

Let's dive into the Week 6 data, and as always snap counts and red zone data come from Pro Football Reference.

Volume Metrics

The table below is sorted by total season touches for each backfield.

Situational Usage

Smith's Role Continues to Grow for Falcons

With Devonta Freeman ruled out in Week 6, the Atlanta Falcons leaned on a two-headed committee between Tevin Coleman and Ito Smith. Smith saw his highest usage of the season against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He out touched Coleman in both total touches (13 to 12) and red zone touches (4 to 1).

In the four games that Freeman has missed this season, Smith has averaged 9.5 touches and 13.7 PPR points per game. While his snap counts and touch counts continue to rise each and every week.

His emergence has put a damper on the Coleman breakout, and if Week 6 is any indication we could see the Falcons deploy them as a 60/40 split going forward as Freeman hit IR with a groin injury on Tuesday.

Smith could become a league winner if anything were to happen to Coleman, and provides stand alone value as his monstrous red zone usage should help him find the end zones. He has a good chance to hit pay dirt again in Week 7 as a home favorite against the New York Giants

Michel's Elite Red Zone Usage Continues

The New England Patriots have found themselves a steady running back in rookie Sony Michel. Since Rex Burkhead was placed on IR, Michel has seen 16 red zone carries (5.3 per game) from Weeks 4 to 6. Over that same three game span, Michel has handled an average of 22.7 touches and scored 1.3 touchdowns per game.

With no threat for touches behind him, Michel has his early-down and goalline workload well established. As the New England Patriots continue to hit their stride offensively, it will only become easier for Michel to continue cashing in on touchdowns, while opposing defense focus on Tom Brady and the passing game.

Michel faces a decent matchup in Week 7 against the Chicago Bears, who just allowed Frank Gore to rush for 101 yards on 15 touches.

Eagles Backfield Without Ajayi

With Jay Ajayi having probably played his last game as a Philadelphia Eagle after suffering an ACL injury, we got to see our first look at the backfield breakdown.

It was roughly a 60/40 split in favor of Wendell Smallwood over Corey Clement. No back seemed to have any specific role, as it looks like the Eagles feel comfortable with either back in all different situations. Both saw heavy usage in the red zone with a total of 10 touches between the two of them.

The Eagles have been using a committee backfield since Doug Peterson has been there, and it is unpredictable on a week by week basis. While this game was won rather comfortably for the Eagles, it will be interesting to see how they split the work when faced with a negative game script.

Both Smallwood and Clement have value moving forward, but could be up and down throughout the rest of the season. This is a situation to continue to monitor and see if Pederson ends up favoring one of the two backs.

Barber Continues the Destruction Running Backs are Having Against the Falcons

The thought heading into Week 6 was that the trend of running backs' success against the Atlanta Falcons might falter due to the uncertainty in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers backfield.

Ronald Jones had some momentum heading into the week, but in the end only played 12 snaps and handled 4 touches. It was actually Peyton Barber, who woke back up from the dead and smashed the Falcons to the tune of 17 touches for 106 total yards and a touchdown. He has helped the continued trend of the Falcons allowing 20+ PPR points to running backs in all six weeks now.

It seems as if Barber still has the lead in the Bucs' backfield, as Jones has not gained the trust of the coaching staff yet. Jones only saw true usage in a game in which Tampa Bay was trailing by 30 or more points against for the majority of the game against the Chicago Bears.