Strength in Numbers: Actionable Week 18 Stats

We’re going to get a lot of stuff wrong, but sifting through usage metrics can help us work through what matters and what doesn’t. That’s the goal of this article: to break down the most actionable takeaways from each week in a concise, numbers-filled format and work through what’s important. From here on out, we will only focus on teams who are still alive in the playoffs. Let’s get right to it:

1. Kalif Raymond returned but played just four snaps on offense and ran only two routes. Tim Patrick ran 21 routes. Raymond never ran more than 43% of routes from Week 3 onward (once Patrick was settled in), so he’s never been a high-routes player, but two routes is obviously far lower than where he was pre-injury. With two weeks until the Lions’ next game, I’d expect that number to rise in the Divisional Round, although it’s possible Detroit simply views Patrick as their clear WR3 at this point.

2. With the No. 1 seed on the line, the Lions gave Jahmyr Gibbs 23 carries to Craig Reynolds‘ eight, and four of those eight Reynolds carries came on the final drive up 31-9. David Montgomery may be back for the Divisional Round, but if not, I’d expect Gibbs to get as much work as he can possibly handle once again.

3. At halftime of Week 18, Aaron Jones had seven carries to Cam Akers‘ two. Jones came out of the locker room late after halftime and had only three carries after the break compared to Akers’ four. We’ll monitor the injury report going into the Wild Card Round to gauge Jones’ health, but Jones must have tweaked something for the Vikings to move away from him so strongly in a must-win game.