Week 11 Fantasy Football Backfield Report

Thanksgiving week is here, and that means football is chugging right along as we approach Week 12. Fantasy owners only have a couple more weeks left in the regular season, but DFS still has a lot more action left.

Teams outside of the playoff picture should now be leaning towards getting a good glimpse at the younger players on the roster to determine if they are going to be part of the team’s futures. For the potential playoff teams, it is business as usual.

For Week 11, there was really no changes to the data table, the only thing removed was the teams who had byes (Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns, Miami Dolphins, New England Patriots, New York Jets & San Francisco 49ers).

This weekly piece is here to help fantasy owners sift through NFL backfields and understand how coaches are using their backs in terms of volume and high leverage situations. The date only breakdown the backfields that do not heavily favor one back as a bell-cow.

Let’s dive into the Week 11 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

Edwards Emerges for Ravens

Coming into Week 11, the NFL was buzzing around the first career start for Lamar Jackson. The Baltimore Ravens developed a heavy run-focused attack around him, but it was a big surprise that Gus Edwards was the back that dominated the show.

Edwards had only played on 31 snaps and handled just 16 touches coming into this game. His emergence out of nowhere to lead the Ravens' backfield in snaps (49) and touches (17) against the Cincinnati Bengals came as a shock.

Edwards is an undrafted rookie that has a bruising running style like teammate, Alex Collins, who seemed to have been benched after an early touchdown. The Ravens shifted toward Edwards, who was explosive with 5 runs of more than 10 yards in Week 11.

With Jackson potentially starting Week 12, Edwards could be in the driver's seat to lead this backfield again in terms of volume.

Texans Turn Back to Miller

The Houston Texans had shown they were going away from Lamar Miller the past couple weeks as they got Alfred Blue more involved. Blue and Miller both had 30 total touches in Weeks 8 & 9 before the bye.

In Week 11, Miller was leaned on heavily as he handled 74.2% of the backfield touches and played on 73% of the offensive snaps. While he wasn’t very efficient with the 23 touches (4.7 yards per touch), it was encouraging to see him with that heavy of a workload.

The next three games for the Texans are all home games in which they should be favored. If Miller handles big volume, he makes for a decent play going forward.

Eagles Getting a Good Look at Adams

Since the loss of Jay Ajayi after Week 5, the Philadelphia Eagles have had a rough time trying to find any consistency in the run game. Wendell Smallwood and Corey Clement both have had their opportunities but have been unable to impress.

Undrafted rookie Josh Adams has seen his workload increase the last three weeks. He leads the Eagles in touches over that span with 27 compared to 16 for Smallwood and 15 for Clement. Adams' snap count has increased over each of the last three games (29.0%, 30.6%, 54.9%).

The Eagles have never heavily favored one back under Doug Pederson, but Adams is making a case to be the feature back to close out the team's disappointing 2018 season.

As a touchdown favorite at home against the New York Giants, Adams could be poised to hit pay dirt for the second week in a row in Week 12.