Five Stats to Know: 2025 Week 5

Week 5 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: You’re Allowed to Buy-High on Jaylen Waddle

Tyreek Hill has missed two games since he was traded to Miami. In them, Jaylen Waddle averages 9.0 targets, 126.0 receiving YPG, and 25.6 FPG.

Waddle has commanded at least 25% of his team’s targets in 10 of his 18 career games without Hill. For comparison, Nico Collins has hit a 25% target share in just 8 of his last 18 games. Drake London has hit that mark in 9 of his last 18.

I choose these examples not only because Collins and London were drafted and ranked several rounds higher in all formats (including by yours truly) in the preseason, but also because their teams possess similar environmental concerns.

Entering Week 5, the Texans (41.0%) and Falcons (34.0%) were allowing higher pressure rates than the Dolphins (31.1%). Tua Tagovailoa has more 300-yard passing games over the past two seasons (5) than C.J. Stroud and Michael Penix combined (4). The Dolphins rank ahead of both the Falcons and Texans in EPA/play this season. How certain are you actually that London and Collins are in better situations for the rest of 2025?

For dynasty formats, I’d concede that Mike McDaniel is by far the most likely coach to be fired among these teams before the start of the 2026 season, and that the guaranteed money on Waddle’s contract means he won’t have a chance to escape to greener pastures (barring a trade) through at least the end of next year. But in the near-term (this year), there’s a very real chance that the Dolphins’ passing game is more productive in total than either Atlanta’s or Houston’s, and it is also quite possible that Waddle is a better player than London and Collins. So I’ll be ranking him as a high-end WR2 for the rest of the season, back-to-back with London.

Stat #2: The Backfields That Will Drive Us Insane

Both RJ Harvey and Woody Marks lost ground in their respective backfields in Week 5, after appearing to take a step forward in Week 4.

Harvey’s carry share fell to just 16% this week, after he’d tied or beaten JK Dobbins in touches in 3 of 4 quarters last week. Worse, Tyler Badie has resurfaced to command 2 targets in each of the past two games, after playing just one snap back in Week 3.

In hindsight, Sean Payton was likely taking advantage of a hapless Bengals team in a game where the outcome was never in doubt to get Harvey more reps, before turning back to Dobbins in a more competitive Week 5 game. But I can’t make sense of the Texans at all.

In both Week 4 and Week 5, the Texans experienced an extreme positive game script. But Marks became less involved, going from a 57% carry share to just 37%, even controlling for the mega garbage-time Dameon Pierce touches at the end of the game.

Progress isn’t always linear for rookies. But going forward, I don’t see either Harvey or Marks as much more than high-end bench stashes.

Stat #3: Theo Johnson or Mason Taylor?

Since the exact play on which Malik Nabers’ season ended, Theo Johnson has commanded 21.6% of the Giants’ targets, tying with Wan’Dale Robinson for the most on the team. For perspective, only three TEs entered Week 5 with above a 21% target share on the season (Trey McBride, Jake Ferguson, and Tyler Warren). Johnson averages 16.0 FPG over his past two games, thanks to 3 TDs. He was only 11% rostered in Yahoo! leagues as of Sunday night.

On the other hand, Jets Day 2 rookie TE Mason Taylor led the team in target share (26.1%) and receptions (9) in Week 5, off the back of a 25.9% target share in Week 4. Both garbage time and a best possible schematic matchup aided his production, but the Jets are just as lacking in viable receivers behind Garrett Wilson as the Giants are post-Nabers. This is a talented player who ranked as Brett Whitefield’s TE4 in a loaded rookie class. As of Sunday night, he was rostered in just 13% of Yahoo! leagues.

I’d be happy to add either TE for 15-20% of my FAAB this week (and would suggest putting mutually exclusive bids in for both), but between the two of them, I feel I’d have to choose Taylor. The fact that he’s doing this immediately as a rookie (rather than in Year 2, as many TEs tend to do) signals to me that his upside as a talent is much higher — even if I might prefer my players to be catching passes from Jaxson Dart rather than Justin Fields at this point.

Stat #4: Keep An Eye On The Browns’ TEs

Browns rookie QB Dillon Gabriel targeted TEs on 39.4% of his pass attempts in Week 5. For comparison, David Njoku and Harold Fannin had combined for just a 26.8% target share over the first four weeks, and no team had sent more than 35% of their targets to TEs this season (the Cardinals, thanks to Trey McBride).

This could have been a consequence of matchup — the Vikings entered the week having ranked top-7 in target share allowed to both the slot and inline receivers. And the Browns already ranked highly in target share to TEs before Week 5. But given the history of Browns OC Tommy Rees — that is, of running a massively TE-centric offense at Notre Dame with Michael Mayer and Tommy Tremble, despite the presence of other NFL talent at RB and WR — I do wonder if the elevated usage we saw for Njoku and Fannin in Week 5 could be the new normal.

That would most hurt Jerry Jeudy, who has now reached 14 fantasy points in only 2 of his 31 games over the past three seasons in which Jameis Winston was not the starting QB. He was out-targeted by Isaiah Bond this week. I might prefer to roster Bond at this point.

Stat #5: Is Zero RB Alive? / Spot Start RBs Smash

Zero RB drafters got a welcome reprieve in Week 5, as all three of the spot starters from late in drafts or the waiver wire hit this week.

Michael Carter dominated the Cardinals’ backfield to the tune of a 72% carry share and a 15.6% target share. He did lose one of the backfield’s two carries inside the 5-yard line to Bam Knight, but that was because Knight ripped off a couple of chunk gains to get the offense to the goal line, and the Cardinals’ coaches (unlike what many staffs across the league would have done!) left him in. I doubt that turns into a sustained pattern over the next few weeks; Carter is an RB2 for as long as Trey Benson remains on IR (for at least the next 3 to 5 games). Emari Demercado remained in his long down-and-distance role and partially cost the Cardinals the game, so I wouldn’t be too worried about him.

In similar fashion, Rachaad White commanded 82% of the Buccaneers’ backfield carries, got all three rush attempts inside the 10-yard line, and remained involved in the passing game as usual (12.1% target share). In total, White’s 17.0 weighted opportunities were his best since Week 10 of last year. He hit that mark just twice in all of 2024, and will likely do so again in Week 6, with Bucky Irving set to remain on the shelf at least another week due to a previously unreported shoulder injury.

Finally, with Chuba Hubbard out, Rico Dowdle led the Panthers to a win via his 234 scrimmage yards. Along the way, he commanded an 85% backfield carry share, a 13,3% target share, and received both carries inside the 10. On all three counts, this was a better role than Hubbard has had in any game since the season opener.

Though we have the least information about Hubbard’s injury of this trio, I’m the most optimistic about Dowdle’s ability to hold this role long-term. He now ranks top-3 in the NFL by YPC and had already stolen the goal-line role prior to Week 5. Panthers HC Dave Canales loves to use a single bellcow RB, but it took a couple of weeks for him to fully zero in on Hubbard over Miles Sanders early in 2024. There’s a real chance he just continues feeding Dowdle from here on.