Jacksonville Jaguars RB Travis Etienne Jr. was an RB1 last season, but didn’t quite provide fantasy football managers the weekly production his final numbers suggest.
With the team actively looking to find a way to reduce his workload, is Etienne worth an early-round pick in 2024 fantasy drafts?
Travis Etienne Jr.’s Fantasy Forecast
Etienne’s appeal is obvious. In the modern NFL, there are no more than a handful of running backs who play on all three downs. Etienne is one of them.
On the surface, last season’s performance looks quite excellent. Etienne averaged 16.6 fantasy points per game last year, finishing as the overall RB7. Fantasy managers taking him at his RB11, No. 39 overall ADP would sign for that right now.
While Etienne was a much better fantasy asset in 2023 than he was in 2022, his efficiency took a serious hit. Etienne went from 5.1 yards per carry to 3.8. He only averaged 4.6 yards per touch, and just 3.7% of his carries went for 15+ yards.
There is a key thing to know about Etienne’s poor efficiency, though — it doesn’t actually matter. Whether a running back is efficient only matters as it pertains to his volume. If Etienne’s inefficiency results in reduced volume, then his fantasy output will suffer. If not, then we shouldn’t care.
The Jaguars drafted Tank Bigsby last season with the intent of taking some of the load off Etienne. That didn’t work as Bigsby proved to not be an NFL-caliber running back, at least as a rookie.
This season, the Jaguars will likely once again strive to give Etienne a lighter workload. Once again, though, I’m not sure they have the personnel to do it.
Last season, Etienne saw a 76% opportunity share, sixth in the league. It’s reasonable to project that to drop a bit, but he should still be among the league leaders.
Etienne’s 12.1% target share was 14th in the NFL. He also saw eight goal-line carries. All of this led to him posting RB1 numbers.
There’s a lot to like about Etienne’s role. However, everything is not exactly what it seems.
The reality of Etienne’s season was that he had a legendary stretch of games from Weeks 5-8, scoring 36.4, 23.3, 22.7, and 25.9 fantasy points, respectively. Over the rest of his games, he averaged 13.4 points.
In simpler terms, Etienne carried your fantasy team to four wins. For the rest of the season, he didn’t really help you at all.
With that said, volume is king. Etienne’s erratic scoring last season is likely more random than anything else. If he continues to see heavy workloads, chances are he will be more consistent.
Furthermore, consistency is overrated. We should embrace players who are capable of doing what Etienne did for that four-week stretch. The hope for this season is that he can do it more than four times.
The Jaguars don’t really have any obvious playmakers who command the ball. Receivers Christian Kirk and Brian Thomas Jr. are solid, and perhaps both very good. But neither is a game-breaking player. As a result, there should still be plenty of work for Etienne both on the ground and through the air.
Given how running backs have been pushed down draft boards relative to wide receivers this year, we may be in an anomalous season where third- and fourth-round running backs are not actually dead-zone backs and are very much worth selecting.
Etienne is my RB10, one spot below his ADP, and firmly in the mix for me at cost.