Whether you won or lost your Week 2 fantasy football matchup, your level of NFL scrutiny should be at an all-time high right now.
With two weeks of games in the books, we can now start to evaluate what is working in your team’s favor and how we can take what we are seeing, and use it for lineups and waiver claims moving forward. You should be studying target distribution for every team, as well as how the carries are doled out in backfields. Once you complete this study, you’ll have no issues understanding things like how James Robinson is a better second running back for your fantasy teams than Travis Etienne.
The easy look into the Jaguars backfield is the carry distribution. Robinson saw 11 carries to Etienne’s four during their Week 1 loss to Washington, then Robinson carried the ball 23 times during Sunday’s game against Indianapolis. Etienne had just nine Week 2 carries with three coming in the Jaguars’ final series as they were looking to close things out and kill the clock.
Travis Etienne Jr. USA TODAY SportsWe fully expected Robinson to be the more heavily used back between the tackles, but if you were to look at one of those snazzy ESPN Next Gen Stat Charts you would see that he saw a significantly higher percentage of outside zone runs in Week 2. That was supposed to be Etienne’s area.
Skeptics of this thought process will point out that the Jaguars were leading, thus they weren’t in need of Etienne, who profiles more as a pass-catching back. Maybe his snap share dropped in Week 2 because of game flow, but coach Doug Pederson has always been an advocate of playing the hot hand, so two touchdown drops and a fumble in Week 1 coupled with a fairly ineffective showing in Week 2 speak volumes in the work distribution.
The cost of Etienne in fantasy drafts was significant enough that you cannot drop him right now, but you also cannot start him. Your hope should be that the Chargers and Eagles blow out the Jaguars over the next two games and Etienne gets showcased more. Maybe then he will have some fantasy trade value, because two weeks in, Robinson owners should feel pretty good about his grip on the lead job.
Howard Bender is the VP of operations and head of content at FantasyAlarm.com. Follow him on Twitter @rotobuzzguy and catch him on the award-winning “Fantasy Alarm Radio Show” on the SiriusXM fantasy sports channel weekdays from 6-8 p.m. Go to FantasyAlarm.com for all your fantasy sports advice, player projections, injury updates and more.



