Five Stats to Know: 2025 Week 3

Week 3 is (mostly) in the books! In case you aren’t an insane person like me who likes to spend his Sunday night digging through usage data, I’ve curated five stats that will help you make better decisions in all fantasy football formats for the coming weeks.

I’ll also do my best to provide buy, sell, and waiver recommendations for managed leagues where applicable based on my findings. For a broader (if slightly less detailed) overview of usage across the league, I recommend this Twitter thread.

Stat #1: Jaylen Warren Is Finally A Bellcow. Why Aren’t You Clapping?

For years, fantasy football managers rooted for Jaylen Warren to overtake Najee Harris and become the Steelers’ lead back. Leading up to Week 3, the Warren hive found an unlikely ally: Aaron Rodgers himself.

In a maneuver that has historically worked out horribly for NFL franchises, the Steelers gave Aaron Rodgers exactly what he wanted.

Over the past three weeks, Warren’s share of backfield carries has climbed from 58% to 70% to 82%. As for the pass game, Warren was peppered on Sunday to the tune of a 26.1% target share, the highest mark on the team. Through Sunday night, Warren ranks top-10 among all RBs in weighted opportunities per game this season (16.7), and he saw the 4th-most of any RB in Week 3 (22.0). All of Warren’s Week 3 metrics mentioned in this paragraph were career-highs.

Warren was robbed of a big fantasy day after Kenneth Gainwell subbed in at the goal-line on a fresh set of downs that resulted from an end zone DPI. Warren was stuffed twice before that, but the TDs are going to come: only Saquon Barkley, Jonathan Taylor, and Josh Jacobs have more carries than Warren in the green zone this year.

Even if Kaleb Johnson eventually escapes the doghouse and mixes in on early downs, all Warren needs to maintain fantasy RB2 status this year is to hold onto the roles at the goal line and in the receiving game. I’d currently rather have him than players like Travis Etienne, Chuba Hubbard, or Alvin Kamara (whom I discuss below). I’d check in on Warren’s price in any leagues you’re in need of an RB.

Stat #2: The Backfields That Will Drive Us Insane

I’d say the Commanders earned their place in this section after unveiling one of the most disgusting three-way committees I can remember after Austin Ekeler’s season-ending injury.

Chris Rodriguez drew the “start” and played the entire first drive. He finished the day with 48% of the backfield’s carries, to Bill Croskey-Merritt’s 35%, to Jeremy McNichols’ 17%.

By weighted opportunity, Croskey-Merritt finished evenly with Rodriguez (7.1 apiece), thanks to the rookie drawing the only backfield target in this game and being trusted with 2 of 3 backfield carries inside the 5-yard line. This, of course, wasn’t a “typical” day for the Commanders’ offense — they faced a Raiders’ defense that had been an extreme pass funnel through two weeks, and were without Jayden Daniels — but I wouldn’t be surprised if the lack of backfield target volume post-Ekeler sticks around. There doesn’t have to be an “Austin Ekeler role” when none of your remaining backs are accomplished pass-catchers.

That leaves us pretty much where I thought we were in this backfield, though. Croskey-Merritt will be startable as a weekly FLEX if and when he wins a 60%+ carry share. Nobody in this backfield is currently someone I want in my lineup, nor do I have any desire to burn bench space on Rodriguez or McNichols.

Stat #3: Checking In On Rookie RBs (With Maximum Positivity)

This week, I want to highlight three rookies whose roles I have especially positive things to say about coming out of Week 3. I also want to note that the sky was falling for two of these three players (and the rookie class as a whole) this time last week. Remember that things change fast in the NFL!

I remarked last week that Quinshon Judkins was likely now the Browns’ clear lead back, but that we may not find out for sure until we see them in a truly neutral or positive game script. And, well, that happened a lot sooner than I expected!

Judkins gathered 18 of the backfield’s 19 carries and was entrusted with all three of them inside the 10-yard line. Jerome Ford still had both of the backfield’s 3rd down targets and could plausibly hold onto a pass-blocking-heavy role for the entire year, but Judkins is now in weekly RB2 territory.

The Browns will almost never be favored — which obviously hurts Judkins as a two-down back — but after holding the Packers and Bengals to just 27 combined points, I could buy that this defense is good enough to keep some games ugly and close. As I said last week, Judkins does not possess true top-12 upside because of this limitation, but scoring as the ~RB18 the rest of the way feels well within reach.

One week after TreVeyon Henderson got called for three holding penalties, Rhamondre Stevenson and Antonio Gibson combined for three lost fumbles. As a result, Henderson captured some very exciting opportunity shares in the 2nd half, seeing 9 of 12 backfield carries (75%) and a 12.5% target share. This isn’t guaranteed to stick in Week 4 (especially considering he didn’t break any especially big plays or have much room to run), but it is a glimpse into the role Henderson could have, and a reminder of his season-long upside.

Finally, Omarion Hampton received all 21 of the Chargers’ backfield touches after Najee Harris left the game with a non-contact Achilles injury. (The two backs were in a near-even touch split up to that point, for anyone curious.)

Hampton still wasn’t especially efficient on the ground in this game (3.7 YPC), but he made a positive impact as a receiver, catching 6 of his 7 targets for 59 yards. That target total is notable because it matched this entire backfield’s total number of targets over the previous two games; until Week 3, the Chargers were throwing to RBs at a near league-low rate. Should this prove to be a trend, Hampton’s upside will prove much higher than I believed a week ago.

But the rest of this take is pretty simple, assuming Harris is out for the season. It’s not going to matter much how efficient Hampton is if he’s locked into an 80%+ opportunity share for the rest of the season on what still looks like one of the NFL’s best offenses. Kimani Vidal and Hassan Haskins aren’t going to be what stops me from ranking Hampton as a top-12 RB rest-of-season.

Stat #4: Alvin Kamara Is Probably Cooked…

Alvin Kamara has now failed to reach a 5% target share in 2 of the Saints’ 3 games this season. For perspective on just how insane that is, Kamara commanded a sub-5% target share in only one game from 2021 through 2024, and he wasn’t below a 12.0% target share in any game last year.

All I’m saying is that if you were told before the season that Tyler Badie, Trey Benson, and James Cook would out-target Kamara through Week 3, you wouldn’t have drafted a single share of him inside the top-24 at the position.

Of course, I’m not especially surprised by this; I made a very big deal this offseason of the screen targets Kamara would likely be losing in the Kellen Moore offense. I just didn’t think it would be quite this bad. Add that the Saints aren’t favored in a single game until Week 16 in lookahead lines, alongside Week 2-3 usage breakouts from rookies like Quinshon Judkins and Cam Skattebo, and I don’t think I’ll be ranking Kamara as a top-24 RB rest-of-season. I’d sell him for almost any starting lineup-worthy asset you can.

Stat #5: …As Is Chuba Hubbard

Speaking of players who are rapidly falling outside of the weekly RB2 range, Chuba Hubbard has had a very uninspiring role over the past two weeks. He’s received 63% of his backfield’s carries in both of those games — a fine-enough number in isolation — but that papers over all of the high-value touches he’s lost.

Rico Dowdle has handled all five of this backfield’s carries inside the 10-yard line over the past two games. If not for two garbage-time receiving TDs in Weeks 1 and 2, Hubbard would be averaging just 9.7 FPG this season. (Hubbard scored one receiving TD in all of 2024, on only a marginally lower target share than he has through three games in 2025.)

The Panthers got a rare positive game script thanks to a Michael Penix implosion in Week 3. It resulted in just 73 scoreless rushing yards and 15.3 weighted opportunities for Hubbard. For comparison, across four wins last year, Hubbard averaged 122.8 rushing YPG and 22.4 weighted opportunities per game. If you aren’t getting the highest-end bellcow workloads from Hubbard that he saw in 2024 during the Panthers’ rare wins, I’m not really sure what the point of having him in fantasy football is.