5 NFL Red Zone Trends to Monitor for Week 14

Opportunity in Pittsburgh

The Pittsburgh Steelers have already ruled out James Conner for Week 14.

Conner has 34 carries and 7 targets in the red zone this season, and those 41 opportunities rank 6th in the NFL. They have also accounted for 39.1% of the Steelers' opportunities, which is the league's seventh-highest market share. There aren't many absences that could have more impact on touchdown scoring than this one.

In the passing game, any impact felt from his absence would really come down to a shift in play-calling, as his seven targets have only accounted for 10.9% of the Steelers' red zone looks this year. The average target market share for running backs that rank top-10 in opportunity share is 19.1%.

JuJu Smith-Schuster and Antonio Brown already rank 2nd and 12th in the NFL with 23 and 16 red zone targets, respectively, so while they continue to offer elite touchdown upside, that doesn't necessarily change much with Conner out.

Jaylen Samuels projects to take over lead-back duties until Conner is back, but the fact that he has never handled a heavy workload on the ground, combined with Mike Tomlin's comments, means we may see more of a committee than they've gone with in the past.

In a committee, Samuels stands to be heavily featured in the passing game, but he could cede early-down and goal line work to Stevan Ridley. With Conner vacating mostly rushing work in the red zone, that gives Ridley some interesting touchdown upside.

Samuels' overall volume may make him the safer fantasy option, but it wouldn't come as a surprise if Ridley found the end zone this week.