Don’t blink, you might miss the month of July completely. As the ides of July pass us by and the prospect of football gets that much closer, that just means the fires of fantasy football are growing hotter.
We are a week away from the start of training camps. Positional battles, camp highlights, and hot takes will soon flood Twitter timelines. With more information comes more questions — none bigger than this:
Who is going to break out and who is going to bust? Unless you’re playing Superflex, the most important position in fantasy is still the running back. Even as the early-round wide receiver is gaining momentum, there is no greater advantage in fantasy football than dominance and depth at the running back position.
Zero-RB players may scoff at this notion but the data speaks for itself. Running backs make up a huge majority of any season’s league-winners. And typically, you’ll have to pay up to acquire them.
In Scott Barrett’s “Anatomy of a League Winner” article, he breaks down the data, which shows that 80% of league-winning backs were selected in the first four rounds. His data shows that across the previous six seasons, 17 running backs gave their fantasy managers a win percentage over 60%. The other five positions combined contributed win percentages of over 60%.
How do you maximize both? Leverage breakout signals with draft value and bippity boppity boo!
So who is showing signals of breaking out in 2023? One answer lies below:
TRAVIS ETIENNE
Cue the sirens! Hot take alert!
I am not scared of Tank Bigsby. Do you want to know why? Two words: positive regression.
Last season, Travis Etienne put up almost 1,450 total YFS, including 1,125 on the ground. With only 220 rush attempts, Etienne was the poster boy for explosive efficiency. Don’t believe me? Well, numbers never lie my friend.
**data courtesy of Tej Seth
Etienne finished the regular season as the rushing yards over expectation champ and fourth in RYOE per attempt. His 5.1 yards per carry also ranked fourth among RBs with more than 100 rush attempts.
According to the NFL’s NextGen Stats, Etienne ranked as the league’s third most explosive player, ranking behind only Kenneth Walker and Justin Fields. That’s high praise! NGS noted how 26 of Etienne’s rush attempts exceeded 10 yards on the ground and he hit over 15 mph on more than 25% of his rushes, including six rushes exceeding 20 mph.
Etienne ranked second in the league in broken tackle rate at 26.5% and also had the fifth-most breakaway runs in the league.
Coming into the NFL game, what made Etienne so electrifying was not only his breakaway speed but his pass-catching chops. In college, he posted the second high college yards per route run ever while commanding a 12.2% target share from his college and current NFL quarterback, Trevor Lawrence.
So, why didn’t Etienne feast more in the receiving game? The answer, he was absolutely dominant as a pass catcher, as evidenced by his 9.0 Y/R, but the Jaguars targeted the running back position on only 14% of their pass attempts, which was the fifth-lowest in the league. Etienne averaged nearly 10 yards per reception in 2022. That’s a JUICY indicator of receiving prowess and future upside as a pass catcher.
While with the Eagles, in each of his first two seasons, Miles Sanders saw at least 52 targets. Who was in charge of the Eagles during the 2019 and 2020 seasons? You got it, Doug Pederson.
In 2022, the Jaguars ranked 16th in plays run, 16th in rush attempts, and ninth in pass attempts. Despite all of that, the Jaguars still ran fewer plays than their opponents. As Lawrence and the rest of the offense continues to grow and develop, I expect that number to jump and the Jaguars to develop into a pass funnel offense, leading to more target opportunities and wider running lanes for Etienne to exploit.
The calculus is simple, more plays equal more opportunities.
Bringing all of this back to the addition of Bigsby. Why was he brought in? Well, two reasons:
- James Robinson is gone. It was clear the Achilles injury had sapped any play-making ability he had left and he was just a roster clog.
- Etienne struggled inside of the five-yard line, scoring only three touchdowns on 14 opportunities.
The great Scott Barrett noted in his 2023 Expected Touchdowns article, Etienne scored nearly five fewer touchdowns than his opportunities suggested he should have. This makes him a prime candidate for those lucrative touchdown fantasy points.
Bigsby was brought in to replace Robinson and help keep Etienne fresh. Aptly named, Tank does project to have a role in short yardage and at the goal line. Still, what indicators are there that a third-round pick who struggled to capitalize on his promise at Auburn will supplant a first-round pick who exploded one year after a devastating Lisfranc injury?
Pederson alluded to his high expectations of Etienne after an electrifying 2022 season at the 2023 Scouting Combine. He said there are many things he likes about Etienne’s game and said he expects Etienne to have an even bigger impact on the offense in 2023.
“The biggest thing for me, I love his toughness, his physicality”, Pederson said. “He’s not a big guy but he’s very physical when he runs. He can be elusive and got good speed. And he’s just gonna get better as a runner”, Pederson said. “When he gets a chance to go back and watch what he did last year in our system, there’s going to be times where he’s going to go, ‘I should’ve hit it here’. That’s the growth mentality that he’ll have. Just excited for him. Getting back in our system again, second year, to watch the growth in him. Really, how he bounced back from that injury in Year 1 in the foot to be a really good impact player for us on offense.”
Pederson also noted Etienne won’t have to compete for a starting spot in 2023.
Etienne’s running backs coach also cited how he has improved his patience and ability to make the right reads going into 2023, but Etienne has to show it on the field when the pads are on and the lights are bright.
“Anybody can get the ball and go. Travis is talented enough he can make a lot of things look easy,” said Jags’ running backs coach Bernie Parmalee. “But you leave so much out there when you don’t stick to the plan. It’s more about patience, too. That’s what we worked on this whole offseason: Understanding blocking schemes, understanding leverages of linebackers, understanding your read, understanding your track, being patient enough to press it. Can you do it in practice? Then the big challenge, can you do it in a game?”
In 2022, Etienne played 59.4% of snaps and commanded 49.1% of the team’s total rush attempts, but only saw a 7.2% share of the targets. Bigsby was brought in to spell Etienne and keep him fresh and help keep the chains moving. Given how excited the Jaguars are about Etienne in 2023 and their desire to get him more involved in the offense, the path to the breakout is clear.
Travis Etienne comes in as the RB16 on The Wolf’s Big Board (-3 vs ECR) and at an ADP of 48 overall (-22 vs ECR).
Stay tuned for the rest of the 2023 RB Breakout Series
