With just one week remaining in the regular season, the Tennessee Titans wisely elected to give Derrick Henry what should be an additional two weeks off for his broken foot to heal. Heading into Week 18, what are the fantasy football outlooks for D’Onta Foreman and Dontrell Hillard against the Texans?
D’Onta Foreman remains the Titans’ RB1
Following Henry’s Week 8 broken foot, the Titans made two key moves in free agency, signing Foreman and Adrian Peterson. AP got the first shot at lead-back duties, but at age 37, he just can’t play professional football anymore. Peterson quickly ceded that role to Foreman, who was getting his first live-action since tearing his Achilles.
Week 12 was where Foreman started to take over the Titans’ backfield. Since then, he’s been the RB21 in PPR formats by average fantasy points per game with 13.4. He’s had one RB1, two RB2, and two RB3 finishes.
Dontrell Hilliard is still involved
Hilliard’s usage has been quite interesting. Back in Week 11, he was the clear passing-down back, running 39 routes. However, over the past two weeks, he’s run a grand total of just 9 routes.
Nevertheless, I expect Hilliard to be a bit more involved in the passing game this week as the Titans are now down to essentially just Hilliard and Foreman. Henry remains on the injured reserve, and the team released Jeremy McNichols on Saturday. Foreman has yet to run more than 7 routes in a single game this season, and I would not expect that to suddenly change.
Is either Foreman or Hilliard a strong Week 18 fantasy option?
The key to solving the Week 18 riddle in whatever fantasy format you’re playing is figuring out motivation. While the Titans aren’t motivated enough to bring Henry back, they do still need to win this game in order to secure the top seed in the AFC.
Additionally, they are playing the lowly Texans, who have allowed the fourth-most fantasy points to running backs this season.
When these teams met in Week 11, Peterson was still around, and carries were divided relatively evenly between the three backs. Following Foreman’s third 100-yard rushing effort in his last five games last week, I expect Foreman to dominate the carries ahead of Hilliard.
Foreman played 65% of the offensive snaps last week, the highest share for any Titans running back not named Derrick Henry this year. His 26 carries were also a season-high under the same criteria. Foreman has run well and scored in three of his last four contests. With a projected positive game script and a good chance at 20+ carries, Foreman is a high-end RB2 in Week 18.
What about Hilliard’s fantasy value?
Hilliard is certainly more valuable this week than he was last week, with the Titans down to just two running backs (sorry, Jordan Wilkins — you don’t count). Ryan Tannehill targeted Hilliard 10 times during their last game against the Texans, and Hilliard caught 8 of them for 47 yards. However, it’s worth noting that the Titans were trailing the majority of that game.
Last week, Hilliard played just 24% of the offensive snaps. That number was 21% the week before. Without McNichols, I expect that number to rise, but he is not a threat to Foreman’s lead-back role. Hilliard is very difficult to trust as I expect this to be a very Foreman-centric game. Leave him on fantasy benches this week.