I was glad to hear from many of you that talking through trading from a deep roster in yesterday’s post was helpful stuff, but what was less helpful was my super sneaky RB pickup that barely played.
Part of why I wanted to write that up is I felt the logic was pretty sound, and I still think we’ll see more of Chase Edmonds in the Tampa backfield as the season rolls along, but two things happened last night that both worked against the premise. First, Edmonds didn’t get a ton of playing time. He was the third back to enter, after Ke’Shawn Vaughn came in for a carry in the first quarter. Edmonds did get a three-and-out series to himself to start the second quarter, and interestingly, Vaughn didn’t play much after that point, with Edmonds winding up playing eight snaps to just four for Vaughn. Edmonds also got three carries and three targets on those eight snaps, while Vaughn had just the one opportunity. But ultimately, Rachaad White played his second highest snap share of the year at 82%.
And that’s probably because of the second thing that happened, which was that White played his best game of the year. He only rushed 9 times, but he averaged a season-high 4.3 yards per carry, which was only his second time over 3.8 in seven games, while he’s been below 3.0 three times. It brought his season average up to 3.3, although it’s worth noting his longest run of the night got called back by a hold, and he frankly just looked a lot better. He’s still dead last among NFL RBs in Next Gen Stats’ Rush Yards Over Expectation metric at -95, and even in terms of RYOE per attempt, he’s one of only three backs averaging at least a full yard under expectation per attempt (Cam Akers, Rhamondre Stevenson, and White).
But again, that’s why a rushing like of 9-39 with another solid run of probably 18ish yards being called back by holding felt like such an improvement. Meanwhile, he looked great as a receiver, catching all 7 targets he saw for 70 yards, a season high. It was his second straight game with at least 10 yards per reception, after averaging a subpar 6.1 yards per reception across his first five games. For the season, though, he’s also caught 29 of 30 targets, which is the kind of dependability out of the backfield that will keep a guy in that role even if he’s not gaining any yardage, which again, White has been decent at for the past two weeks especially.
So the thesis that the team might have been in some ways waiting on Edmonds, and ready to turn him loose in a much larger role than expected by the fantasy community, possibly even threatening for a 50/50 split last night, was very much inaccurate. There are broader implications of that, including the tea leaves reading I was doing that their unwillingness to sign free agents might mean a favorable view of Edmonds’ return; instead, it seems likely that same point should be taken as an implicit acceptance or even stamp of approval of White as their best option. And that means that based on how White played, it would be pretty flawed to assume the Bucs will feel the need to shift backfield work anytime soon. He’s finally showing some life.
I would certainly peg Edmonds as the handcuff for now, but I already wrote about the limited upside in this backfield and he’s probably not worth a hold in most leagues. I also saw some other fun stuff last night, particularly with Gabe Davis, so let’s do a full Stealing Signals writeup of that game real quick, which will just help me get a head start on the 10 games I have lined up for Monday since the NFL didn’t schedule any byes for Week 8.
(Just as a heads up, I’m going to rewrite some of the Tampa backfield stuff I wrote above, so I can just copy/paste the below into Monday’s article as the first game, and it will be complete.)