This is the next in a series of articles that attempts to shine a light on how various teams really do use their backs and what we can surmise about them going forward. Today we focus on the AFC West.
Denver Broncos
Phillip Lindsay is currently going at 73rd overall according to DLF ADP (next to Mike Williams and TY Hilton), with Royce Freeman back at 119th (next to Tyler Higbee and Mike Gesicki).
This shows that dynasty owners think Lindsay is a much better asset and you can see why. He’s performed much better than Freeman has two straight years.
However, this chart shows the total combined targets and carries per week through 2019 for the two backs:
As you can see it really was much more even than ADP suggests. In fact, for much of the first half of the season Freeman was getting more volume. Lindsay had a larger share later in the year, but (aside from week 17) it was still a job share.
I haven’t seen a single person mention Jacob’s shoulder when pointing out his lack of usage in the pass game. Pass catching was an obvious strength of his coming into the league, so it’s easy to assume they were trying to avoid aggravating his injury by targeting him. Of course, nobody knows for sure, but I feel it’s safe to assume he will see more targets going forward in his career. Who spends a first round pick on a two down thumper?
The Pats spend a 1st rd pick on a two down thumper.
The reason i dont buy the shoulder as why he didnt receive more targets is that he didnt receive it at any point during the season and he didnt hurt the shoulder week 1. That and when a team has a Jalen Richard who is a superior passing down back, why would leave Jacobs on the field on third down when you have a guy who is better at that skill set?
I sold Jacobs for 1.01 this year, because i am not optimistic he will be heavily involved in the pass game and I personally prefer Sanders of the 2019 rookies because of his passing involvement.
To play devil’s advocate…As someone that works in medicine I will say that it’s entirely possible that Jacobs fractured scapula played a role in his passing volume. The shoulder joint is the most mobile joint of the body, but a fractured scapula (which aren’t always immediately caught on imaging) Is very painful and severely limits arm movement. It would significantly hamper a player that’s trying to catch passes. With that injury you need to keep the arm close to the torso and you aren’t able to stretch out to catch a football. It like make sense that he could carry the ball, but could be hampered trying to extend to catch a ball. Furthermore, they wouldn’t want someone that can’t extend their arms and block on passing downs which would also play a role in having a reduced 3rd down role. This could have been fractured in pre-season for all we know. I’ve noticed that most of the injury related takes on this site (and all sites) aren’t accurate. That understandable and I don’t expect a physicians’ expert opinion on this site…but it’s something to remember when reading any of these articles. Take armchair doctors with the grain of salt.
