The NFL regular season may be over, but with four more weeks of football, fantasy doesn’t have to stop just yet. Like myself, I’m sure many of you are in fantasy football playoff leagues. For playoff formats where you have to select your entire roster prior to Saturday’s kickoff, let’s analyze the fantasy value of Josh Jacobs for the NFL postseason and whether Jalen Richard will have enough of a role to impact Jacobs.
Josh Jacobs’ fantasy value is on the rise
After a disappointing 2020 campaign, Jacobs bounced back in 2021. He closed out a season that had a rocky start with a strong finish.
Jacobs averaged 15.3 PPR fantasy points per game this year, finishing as a high RB2. Although Week 18 typically doesn’t count, we can count it for Jacobs because the Raiders were playing in a meaningful game. So, over the final month of the season, Jacobs had at least 90 total yards or a touchdown in every game. In Weeks 16 and 18, he rushed for roughly 130 yards.
How does Jalen Richard factor in?
There was a nice stretch of the season where Jacobs was finally being utilized in the passing game. From Weeks 10-14, Jacobs averaged 6.2 targets per game. Unfortunately, over the final two weeks of the year, Jacobs once again saw his passing-game role marginalized.
The height of Jacobs’ passing-game usage came in Week 13 when he ran 29 routes. Since then, he’s run fewer routes in almost every game. In Weeks 16 and 17, Jacobs ran 17 and 15 routes, respectively. Last week, Jacobs ran just 18 routes.
More important is the rise in Richard’s role. He didn’t run more than 7 routes in a game until Week 17. All of a sudden, Richard was back to being the primary passing-down back. He ran 12 routes in Week 17 and 17 in Week 18 — just one fewer than Jacobs. Jacobs was targeted just twice in a game where Derek Carr attempted 36 passes. A 5% target share is not going to cut it.
If Richard is going to continue to play a sizable role in the passing game, Jacobs’ fantasy upside is capped.
Does Richard have any stand-alone fantasy value alongside Jacobs?
For fantasy managers planning out playoff rosters or setting DFS lineups, the only relevancy Richard has is in his impact on Jacobs. Unless Jacobs were to get hurt, Richard ($4,000 — the stone minimum on DraftKings) does not have any fantasy value.
On the season, Richard’s best fantasy week saw him score 5.5 PPR points. Although his snap share has increased each of the past three weeks (30% in Week 18 marked his season-high), this is still clearly Jacobs’ backfield. Jacobs has averaged around a 70% snap share since Rich Bisaccia took over as head coach.
Should fantasy managers put Jacobs on playoff rosters or start him in DFS lineups?
The Raiders open the playoffs as touchdown underdogs against the Bengals. For what it’s worth, I think the Raiders are live dogs here. I would not be shocked to see them win. With that said, it’s still not the most likely outcome, and even if they do win, anything beyond that seems quite implausible. At maximum, you may get two games out of Jacobs for full-length playoff formats.
Jacobs could make a nice contrarian play if you are trying to maximize points in the first round while differentiating from your opponents. Nevertheless, it is quite risky to take a running back dependent on volume and touchdowns in a game where his team is expected to see a negative game script. That is especially so when that team is also likely to be playing just one game.
The best use for Jacobs is in DFS lineups. His price ($6,500 on DraftKings) relative to other running backs on the slate makes him an intriguing contrarian play. Joe Mixon ($6,800) will be the chalk play in Saturday contests. There are several running backs for full weekend contests that should be more heavily rostered than Jacobs. There is merit to taking a shot on Jacobs as a means of separating yourself from the field in the hopes he can score multiple touchdowns.