Market Share Report: Sammy Watkins Returns to Relevancy

Carry Market Shares

1. Jordan Howard Is Carrying the Bears

In a vacuum, Jordan Howard's handling of 91.4% of the Chicago Bears' running-back carries Sunday is impressive. That's the mark that only a true bellcow will reach, so you know his usage is rock solid.

Then you see that the team's backs ran the ball a whopping 35 times Sunday, meaning Howard accounted for 32 totes. That goes from rock solid to being simply gaudy.

Outside of a brief tryst with Ka'Deem Carey in October, the Bears have essentially been funneling their offense through Howard the past five games. He has at least 15 carries and 77 yards in all of those, giving him a floor that you wouldn't normally associate with an offense that has gone through as many injuries as the Bears have. His carry market share the past five weeks is the fourth-best in the entire league, trailing only Le'Veon Bell, Melvin Gordon, and David Johnson. That's it.

The Bears' offense is still a concern, and it's going to hurt Howard's ceiling. But from a floor perspective, there aren't many running backs in the game with better usage than Howard right now. His team isn't great, and that certainly hurts, but we can still play Howard in the right matchups.

2. Doug Martin Produces Some Reasons for Concern

Doug Martin's Week 13 wasn't quite as dandy as Howard's. Not only that, but even the information we do have is going to be a beast to decipher.

Martin finished with 17 carries for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, accounting for 65.4% of the team's running-back carries. That's not terrible, but it's down from 82.1% in Week 12 and 82.8% in Week 11, and there's an explanation for that with Jacquizz Rodgers making his return from injury. This -- on its face -- would be concerning. But that's when we get into the complications.

This could serve as a reason to ignore Martin's usage here and proceed without caution. Martin had 11 first-half carries to one each for Rodgers and Peyton Barber, and Martin controlled six of eight carries in the third quarter. Rodgers had all five of the team's carries in the fourth quarter, meaning we could just write this off as being an injury for Martin. It's not all that easy, though.

Martin has been ineffective the entire season, logging just a 30.5% Success Rate, a measure of the percentage of rushes on which the player increases the team's expected points for the drive based on numberFire's Net Expected Points (NEP) metric. Rodgers is at 50.5%, placing among the league leaders in the statistic. When that's in play, the Buccaneers may have incentive to decrease Martin's workload, and they'll have the ability to do so with Charles Sims expected to come off of injured reserve for Week 14. This is about to be a loaded backfield, and with Martin performing the way he has, it may be hard to trust him, even in the juiciest of matchups.

3. Jeremy Hill's Usage Outweighs His Ineffectiveness

It would seem a bit strange to go from ragging on Martin's inefficiencies to propping up an also-struggling Jeremy Hill. These two scenarios are a wee bit different, though, and the latter makes Hill's issues much more palatable.

The good for Hill is that he controlled 23 of 31 running-back carries as the Cincinnati Bengals cruised to victory over the Philadelphia Eagles. He also had three targets, giving him nine targets in two games since Giovani Bernard's season-ending injury. Hill's snap rate went up to 58%, his highest since Week 17 of last year. That's all dope. He just did nothing with it.

Hill finished the game with 45 yards from scrimmage, 21 fewer than backup Rex Burkhead, who had just 13 opportunities. That's an issue, and it probably shouldn't make us too jacked about Hill going forward.

Still, this is a deviation from what we have seen from Hill so far this season. He entered Week 13 ranked fifth in Rushing NEP per carry of the 38 running backs with at least 80 attempts, meaning he has been efficient on the whole this season. Additionally -- when defensive tackle Bennie Logan is healthy -- the Eagles have a solid rush defense. This is why we should still feel relatively safe with Hill going forward (or at least more so than you'd expect for a guy who has performed like Hill the past two games). They have more invested in him than they do Burkhead, Hill has shown to be an efficient back this year, and they're still giving him opportunities to right the ship. That's what marks the difference between Hill and Martin in this situation.