Keaton Mitchell fantasy football insight from Hayden Winks - PPR Rankings

Mitchell is such a Mike McDaniel RB. He's only 5'8"/191 but fast as hell and one of the best per-carry backs in the NFL. In fact, he's RB1 in rush yards over expected (+47%), RB1 in EPA per carry (+0.12), and RB2 in YPC (6.3) among RBs with 100+ carries since 2023. Keep in mind, some of those was when he was rehabbing from a torn ACL. McDaniel watched the Ravens offense before free agency and kept noticing Mitchell, to the point he began hanging "WANTED" posters around the GM's office. The Chargers instantly signed him to a 2-year, $9.5M contract with $5M guaranteed. Those are the numbers of a committee-member RB2 in an offense. There are two questions to get right here: 1) Are there enough touches for him to be a half PPR flex play with Omarion Hampton ahead? 2) If Hampton goes down, what will Mitchell's workload be? The upside case for the baseline role would be the 2023 season when Raheem Mostert scored 21 TDs on 13.9 carries and 1.7 receptions per game, while De'Von Achane still had a outlier-efficient 9.4 carries and 2.5 receptions. They both were top-5 fantasy backs. The following year, Mostert was the RB2, averaging 6.5 carries and 1.5 receptions per game, while rookie-year Jaylen Wright mixed in as the RB3. Long story short, 6-10 carries with 1-2 receptions per game feels appropriate for Mitchell with Hampton as the top dog. That'd be about 55-70 total yards per game as a weak flex and fine fantasy RB3, in similar ways TreVeyon Henderson played out last year. If Hampton misses time, then Mitchell would be competing with pass-blocking king Kimani Vidal, who also c...