Five Stats to Know: 2025 Week 4

Week 4 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: The WR Position Is Bleeding Fantasy Value. Injury Variance Is To Blame (Again).

A point I frequently brought up over the offseason was that in 2024, the WR position suffered its worst injury luck in recent memory. At the same time, the top of the RB position (defined by ADP) was about the healthiest it had ever been.

As I wrote in my 2024 Fantasy Football Takeaways, “It’s not that individual RBs were capable of producing more than was previously possible in the past, but that there were more of them producing period because more of the talented players stayed healthy.” Last year, there were five RBs who averaged at least 4.5 FPG more than the replacement-level player at the position (the RB20).

The only WR to do so was Ja’Marr Chase. As a result, he led all players — including those RBs — in ESPN playoff rate (72%), the most ever by a WR. He was the only true elite left at a position that had been hollowed out via injuries, creating a scarcity that made him the clear most valuable player in fantasy, despite only outscoring Saquon Barkley by 16 points from Weeks 1-14.

And well, I’m recapping all of this because right now, Puka Nacua is pacing to blow Chase’s 2024 season out of the water, averaging 3.7 more FPG and 25.3 more YPG through four games. And Nacua is also one of the only WRs drafted in Rounds 1-2 who is 1) healthy, 2) has a healthy QB, and 3) isn’t massively underperforming, whether due to self-inflicted wounds or a dysfunctional offense. Nacua, Amon-Ra St. Brown, and Chase are the only WRs with top-24 offseason ADPs currently averaging over 15.5 FPG. (And Chase may not be for long, after he chains together a couple of more starts with Jake Browning).

And once again, injuries are playing a huge part in this. Amazingly, Chase Brown is the only RB from the first ~three rounds to have lost significant fantasy value due to an injury. Every other injury at the position (James Conner, Aaron Jones, Najee Harris, Tyrone Tracy, and arguably even Austin Ekeler) has struck within a committee backfield and created fantasy value for the remaining member, above and beyond what any player in these backfields may have reached had all stayed healthy.

Compare that to the below list of WRs, which also doesn’t include San Francisco’s entire passing game, Drake London’s AC joint sprain potentially impacting his production for a couple of weeks, and several other later-drafted players like Jayden Reed and Jalen Coker, whose absences haven’t created clear beneficiaries (at least yet). Emeka Egbuka is the only WR one could seriously argue will score more materially more fantasy points this year due to a teammate’s injury. (George Pickens is making a pretty good case for himself on Sunday Night Football as I write this, but the overall point remains.)

What’s the takeaway? If I’m being honest, I mostly just wanted to reflect on the season thus far. If we’re heading for a repeat of 2024, I’d rather have Nacua than any other player in fantasy right now. But that isn’t much of a hot take, regardless of where 2025’s positional scarcity is heading.

If we go two full seasons in a row without any elite RBs getting hurt, perhaps we could theorize that NFL coaches have “solved” RB injuries by instituting a committee backfield for every truly “injury-prone” runner, creating a situation in which injuries to RBs can only help the position’s total fantasy value, while injuries to WRs can only hurt them.

Or this trend could reverse as soon as next week. I’m ready to find out!

Stat #2: The Backfields That Will Drive ME Insane

The Patriots’ and Commanders’ backfields were three-way nightmares in Week 4, but in much the same ways they were in Week 3. So I’m pivoting to something that’s driving me a little insane this week.

I admitted defeat on my offseason James Cook fade two weeks ago. But if he were winning in the same improbable way he did in 2024 — through absurd touchdown efficiency — I’d have shrugged and moved on (he’s still doing that, but that’s not all he’s doing). What’s killing me is that I’d have been very into Cook at cost if I’d thought there was any chance — or if we’d gotten any indication — that his usage would look like it has.

Through four weeks, Cook has received 81%, 66%, 86%, and 92% of his backfield’s rush attempts. The 92% from Week 4 was a career-high for him (outside of one game in 2024 where the Bills only ran the ball six times with RBs). This is very different from how the team always treated Cook before extending him this offseason.

Across his breakout 2024 season, Cook received just a 61% backfield carry share, a mark he’s bested in every game in 2025. He hit 80% just three times all of last season, and has already tied that number this year.

And it’s not just a question of rushing volume. Cook’s target share is meaningfully up in 2025 (from 7.7% to 10.6%). This year, he’s averaging 18.1 weighted opportunities per game, a whopping 43% increase from last season (12.7). Knowing that, I’m not surprised that he’s averaging 37% more FPG than he did in 2024!

Maybe this shouldn’t have been surprising; I’ve often beat the drum that hyper-efficient players (like De’Von Achane entering 2024) have a great chance to see more volume in the following season. What I would never have expected — based on the historical data — was for this to happen during Cook’s fourth season in the NFL. Cook had hit 18.0 weighted opportunities — what he’s averaging this year — in only 5 of 49 career games before 2025. Once a player reaches their fourth season, I don’t generally want to assume they’ll be used significantly differently than we’ve seen to that point, especially by the same coaching staff.

Cook’s offseason contract extension is something you might point to here. In fact, I’ll likely research the historical impact of rookie contract extensions on RB volume this offseason. But I’d still ask — the Bills were Super Bowl contenders last year. Why didn’t they fully unleash Cook then? Could it have earned them the playoff bye? I don’t see any downside to doing this that wouldn’t apply equally (or more so) after they paid him this past offseason.

I’ve written significantly more words on this than I planned. But yes, I’m tilting about James Cook. Yes, he’s a locked-in fantasy RB1 and an incredibly fun player to watch. And yes, it’s going to torture me.

Stat #3: Another Week, Another Rookie Backfield Takeover

Woody Marks took over the Texans’ backfield in Week 4. In a 26-0 rout of the Tennessee Titans, Marks handled 57% of the backfield’s carries, a 17.9% target share, and the backfield’s only attempt inside the red zone (which he punched in for an 18-yard TD).

With Marks performing like this, the Texans have little incentive to turn the backfield back over to Nick Chubb. I’d expect him to lead Texans RBs in touches and weighted opportunities in every game until Joe Mixon is activated. (If he ever is — Dianna Russini recently reported we should get clarity on Mixon by mid-October, but that doesn’t mean we’ll learn he’s going to play.)

I’d only caution that I don’t expect this abckfield to be especially valuable going forward, as the Texans don’t get to play the Titans every week. They are underdogs in each of their next four games, but this is still probably enough to consider Marks a fringe-top 25 RB rest-of-season. I just wouldn’t exceed a ~40% FAAB bid unless I’m especially desperate.

Stat #4: I’m Done Disrespecting Michael Pittman

The final time Michael Pittman carried an injury designation heading into a game was Week 10 of 2024, when he sat out due to the back fracture that plagued him for much of last season. From that point on, he’s been nothing short of an excellent fantasy WR.

Pittman has dipped below a 22% target share just once over his last 11 games. For context on how difficult that is, through the Sunday afternoon games, there are only five players — Chris Olave, Justin Jefferson, Puka Nacua, Rome Odunze, and Trey McBride — who’ve hit a 20% target share in all four weeks this year.

As the tweet above states, Pittman has produced as a borderline fantasy WR1 over this stretch whenever he hasn’t been saddled with league-worst QB play. And that’s not too far off from how I’ll be treating him moving forward; I suspect he’ll close in on the top-18 at the position in our rest-of-season rankings this week.

Stat #5: The Steelers’ Backfield Is Going To Matter Whether You Like It Or Not

After he was a surprise inactive, we won’t get to see how my lead from last week's article — which preferred Jaylen Warren over other veteran RB breakouts — will turn out until after the Steelers’ Week 5 bye.

The Steelers’ backfield is now averaging 26.8 weighted opportunities per game. For comparison, that would have ranked 2nd in the NFL last year, behind only the Lions (29.1). This offense as a whole isn’t great, but the Steelers only have two games for the rest of the season with more than a 5-point spread. In any games that aren’t massive blowouts, there will be backfield fantasy production.

But whether it’s Warren or Kenny Gainwell (who scored 31.4 fantasy points in Week 4 thanks to a whopping 4 carries inside the 10-yard line and a 27.3% target share), someone in this backfield is going to matter a lot this season. I’m still of the opinion that it will be Warren reclaiming his 1A role when healthy, which I suppose makes him a “buy-low” of sorts heading into the bye.