On Friday afternoon, the Cleveland Browns sent Carlos Hyde to the Jacksonville Jaguars for a fifth-round pick in 2019. Hyde will step in for Leonard Fournette, who will miss another game in Week 7 with a hamstring issue and may be held out through Jacksonville’s Week 9 bye. Backup T.J. Yeldon has also been a little banged up himself, with foot and ankle issues, and the recent signing of Jamaal Charles isn’t enough for the Jaguars to get their ground game going.
There’s a lot of fantasy football fallout from Hyde being sent to the Jaguars. To make it a little easier to digest, I’ll break it down by each player that’s impacted.
Carlos Hyde
Hyde has 114 of the 149 running back carries for the Browns through Week 6, which is good for a 76.5 percent share, and he rode that volume to being RB16 in ESPN PPR leagues right now. He should step into a prominent role for Jacksonville, but with less than two days to learn a new playbook he isn’t expected play on Sunday against the Houston Texans.
Yes, we are. No, he won't play. https://t.co/0AcxlGFEA3
— Hays Carlyon (@HaysCarlyon) October 19, 2018
Hyde’s outlook beyond a Week 8 matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles will be determined by Fournette’s status coming off the Week 9 bye. But the Jaguars making the trade for Hyde shows they are sufficiently concerned about Fournette’s return to add a more legitimate reinforcement. That said, Hyde might only get a one-game run as Jacksonville’s No. 1 running back.
If you’re a Hyde owner, don’t overreact. He’s a hold on the buy, sell or hold scale.
Leonard Fournette
Fournette will now miss his fifth game of the season in Week 7, and he left the two he has played in when he initially injured and then aggravated his troublesome hamstring. There was an indication last week he’d be held out through Jacksonville’s Week 9 bye, and the acquisition of Hyde pushes that closer to reality.
Fournette is probably not good trade bait or a good trade target right now, and even if he isn’t on the “can’t cut” list in your league dropping him is a step too far at this point.
Fournette’s fantasy owners have to hold onto him, barring a surprising placement on season-ending IR, and hope he’ll be 100 percent healthy/ready to be a workhorse just in time for the most important time on the schedule.
T.J. Yeldon
Yeldon will start for the Jaguars and presumably see all the touches he can handle against the Texans in Week 7. It’s a middle of the road matchup, but Houston has allowed the 10th-most receptions to running backs through six weeks.
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Yeldon is a serviceable RB2 in all scoring formats for this week, with a slight boost in PPR leagues. Beyond that his fantasy outlook is very cloudy, at best, but Yeldon still has to be owned in most 12 and 14-team leagues right now.
Nick Chubb
Since he went over 100 yards on just three carries against the Raiders in Week 4, with two long touchdown runs, Browns head coach Hue Jackson has twice said Chubb needs more carries. Now with Hyde gone, that’s in line to happen starting in Week 7 against the Buccaneers.
Here come the Nick Chubb carries. https://t.co/pNIHok3R2X
— Scott Petrak ct (@ScottPetrak) October 19, 2018
Chubb should step right into something resembling Hyde’s vacated role. A 76-77 percent share of the carries might be pushing it, but even two-thirds of the work is a significant uptick.
Chubb is owned in 65 percent of Yahoo! leagues, but just 20.3 percent of ESPN leagues as of this writing. Those rates are sure to spike significantly between now and Sunday, but the rookie out of Georgia is still sure to be atop any fantasy waiver wire list looking toward Week 8.
Duke Johnson
Johnson set a season-high for total yards in Week 6 (109; 73 receiving, 36 rushing), and he has four catches in two of the last three games with 12 targets in Baker Mayfield‘s three starts. But he still doesn’t have more than six touches in any game this season.
Johnson should see more carries with Hyde gone. He’s averaging just 3.2 carries per game this season, so a push toward his averages from 2016 (4.6 carries per game) or 2017 (5.1 carries per game) is a reasonable expectation.
Johnson’s fantasy value is still greater in PPR leagues. But he is pretty widely available (44.3 percent owned in ESPN leagues; 46 percent owned in Yahoo! leagues), and he has to be more broadly on the radar as a waiver wire add now.
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