Is This Real? Week 6

Photo: Jeremy Brevard, USA Today Sports

Determining what is real, sustainable production instead of unreliable production is critical for your fantasy team. Players that have sustainable production should be anchors to your team and the type of players you seek to acquire in the trade market. Players that have unsustainable production are the types of players that you should not depend on in your lineup and sell trades.

Will Miles Sanders Continue to Struggle?

Miles Sanders signed the biggest free agent running back contract of the offseason for four years and 25 million dollars with 13 million dollars guaranteed. The contract locked him into a clear starting role for the first three weeks until he had a big-time share with Chuba Hubbard in the past two weeks. Hubbard has out-snapped Sanders over the past two weeks and led the team in carries each of the past two weeks. Sanders has stabilized his receiving work, running routes on 46% of the team’s dropbacks, but this is turning into a full-blown committee in a way that was not anticipated coming into the season. Importantly, Sanders’ performance is a likely explanation. His rushing yards versus expectation is -0.72 compared to 0.38 for Hubbard. Additionally, Sanders has been over expectation on only 23% of his carries, compared to 40% for Hubbard. Sanders entered the season with a high-level opportunity, but his poor play is turning him into a committee back, with the Panthers having a healthy dose of buyer remorse for overspending on Sanders in the offseason.

Verdict: Sanders’s struggles are real, and his poor performance is likely to keep him in a committee with Chuba Hubbard for the foreseeable future, capping his fantasy upside.