A massive fight rocked fantasy football Twitter this offseason. If you spend any amount of time on fantasy football Twitter, this isn’t exactly… shocking. This time, I’m referring to the great Darrell Henderson-Cam Akers battle that sent all corners of the community reeling. There was a certain contingent of Malcolm Brown Truthers, but they’re too busy big braining themselves to be a part of this conversation. This week against the San Francisco 49ers seemed to be a turning point in this debate, which previously had a clear winner. It’s week twelve, and Darrell Henderson had led the backfield to this point. But is it now Cam Akers’ time to shine?
Well, I always say that switching up a job is a two-part proposition. One guy has to perform poorly enough to lose his job, and the other guy has to play well enough to garner more touches and snaps. In this situation, Darrell Henderson is the guy who is playing from ahead, who needs to lose the job for it to become Cam Akers’ time to shine. This week, he had ten touches for nineteen yards. That caps off a four-week trend wherein he has about ten touches per game. He is now averaging under 30 yards per game since the calendar ticked over to November. Henderson peaked in week seven against Chicago, but his production decreased for three straight weeks before rebounding this week.
Therein lies the problem with Darrell Henderson: he’s losing his grip on production, but he still has a grasp on snaps over Akers. Since Akers returned from football Siberia in week eight, he hasn’t passed 26% of snaps in a single game. Henderson has under 33% of snaps just once since week two. While Cam Akers balled out this week, Henderson still had more snaps. He’s the guy Sean McVay wants on the field more than the other two. But, he still splits the workload a lot.
What does this mean, is it Cam Akers’ time to shine? No, I don’t think it is. Box score junkies will get excited that he had 84 yards and a touchdown on the ground. But go ahead and look a little bit deeper: the season parted for a 61-yard touchdown run. I am a huge proponent of “don’t take away a run, all runs happened” but outside of that that run he mostly bashed into the line, averaging 2.9 yards per carry. That kind of goes with what Cam Akers has been… just sort of okay. He had 111 yards in three games since returning from injury before this week. I am going to take the larger sample size since returning from injury and not the long run to prove Akers’ play-to-play value. Did the run happen? Absolutely. Is it indicative of how he’s been playing? Not exactly.
Is it Cam Akers’ time to shine? Not really, that would mean that he’s shining. He had a long run and a touchdown, which doesn’t support him having his time to shine. Henderson is losing the job (and you can drop him), but Akers isn’t doing anything to grab that golden ring.
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