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NFL Usage and Production Report: Week 3
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- Jaylen Warren dominates the Pittsburgh Steelers backfield:Steelers offense looking more like an Arthur Smith offense and less like an Aaron Rodgers offense this week.
- Rookie wide receivers see an increased role:Matthew Golden of the Green Bay Packers, Arian Smith of the New York Jets and Isaiah Bond of the Cleveland Browns have seen steady increases in playing time each week.
- Unlock your edge with PFF+: Access Premium Stats, dominate fantasy with in-season tools and projections and make smarter bets with the new PFF Player Prop Tool.
Estimated Reading Time: 18 minutes
Welcome to PFF’s NFL Usage and Production Report—your one-stop for the fantasy football utilization you actually need. This hub pulls together snap counts, routes run, targets per route run (TPRR), carry share, red-zone usage, alignment, ADOT, time to throw, situational splits, fantasy points and so much more, so you can quickly spot role changes and act before your league does. Use it for waiver wire decisions, buy-low/sell-high trades, rest-of-season (ROS) rankings context, dynasty stashes, DFS builds and prop research.
Below you’ll find the top 10 most crucial usage and production takeaways. If you want more details on these top 10 players, or any other quarterback, running back, wide receiver or tight end in the league, you can jump into the interactive tool right below. It’s the most comprehensive fantasy tool, providing information on how a player is utilized, their performance, and how the defense responds to them. You can view by player, team or position, sort any column, filter by week and snaps, and switch between totals and percentages to see the full picture on anything you’re looking for. You’ll also find all of the information found in the usual recap articles.
1. Jaylen Warren reaches excellent utilization
Warren played in a career high 79.6% of Pittsburgh’s offensive snaps, which is 10% more than his previous high.
The Steelers utilized a two-man rotation with Warren and Kenneth Gainwell in the first two weeks. Warren had a slight lead in snaps overall. Gainwell was the clear passing-down back in Week 1, but the Steelers didn’t have a clear passing-down back in Week 2.
This week, Warren was the primary running back in all situations. This included the majority of early-down snaps and the overwhelming majority of snaps in all other situations. His 79.6% snap rate was the fourth-best for running backs among the first 10 games of the week, behind Saquon Barkley, Tony Pollard and Bijan Robinson. Warren’s 18 carries were three more than his previous career high, and he also led the team in targets, receptions and was tied for the lead in receiving yards. Ideally, he would have averaged more than 2.6 yards per carry. He also missed out on one goal-line snap, and that was the snap where Gainwell scored a touchdown.
Warren’s utilization makes him a clear buy-low option. While it’s fine to wait and see if this usage continues before you consider him a must-start option, he is closer to being a must-start this week than he was last week.
