It’s the same concept in fantasy football – you want your best players getting the most touches and targets possible. With that in mind, let’s take a quick look at the NFL regular-season leaders in touches and targets last year:
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RB Touches
WR Targets
TE Targets
Most of these players should stay heavily involved again in 2014, which is great news for their fantasy values. The more touches and/or targets, the merrier, right? Maybe for targets, but not necessarily for touches.
Looking back to 2012, Arian Foster led the league with 391 regular-season touches. That number stretched to a whopping 460 including the postseason. More importantly, Foster also led the league with 1,243 touches from 2010-12, including playoff games. The result of all that work was a poor first half of 2013 before he suffered a season-ending back injury that required surgery.
That doesn’t mean Marshawn Lynch, who led the league with 403 regular-plus-postseason touches last year, or LeSean McCoy (second with 391) are doomed to suffer the same fate as Foster this season – but it should make owners grab their respective handcuffs just in case.
It’s more important to look at a back’s accumulated touches (including the postseason) over several years before deciding if he’s at risk of breaking down.
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Here are some more “back-breaking” workloads to consider:
• From 2011 to 2013, Lynch (1,094) and Frank Gore (1,035) rank second and third, respectively, behind Ray Rice in touches.
• Stretch that to 2009-13, and Chris Johnson rises up to second on the list with 1,720 touches—though Rice is way ahead with 1,883 in that span.
• From 2007 to 2013, Adrian Peterson leads the entire league with 2,336 touches, 175 more than Gore at No. 2.
• Steven Jackson leads all active players with 3,015 career touches, which ranks him 20th all-time.
