Fantasy Football: 5 Players You Can Drop After Week 3
Marlon Mack, RB, Indianapolis Colts
ESPN Ownership: 40%
Yahoo! Ownership: 34%
The Indianapolis Colts’ depth chart looked to be a place that both their running backs and fantasy players could seize some opportunity and make the most of veteran Frank Gore's departure. This is the main reason why fantasy folks were into Marlon Mack as a late-round draft pick this year. Unfortunately, things haven’t come together the way he or the people who drafted him would have hoped.
Mack has spent two out of the Colts’ three games in 2018 so far on the bench with foot and hamstring issues, and the one game he did appear in saw him amass 12 opportunities (10 rushes, 2 targets) – tied with rookie Jordan Wilkins for the team lead among running backs. Now, sure, it’s tough to pooh-pooh a 41 percent running back opportunity share in this day-and-age of committee backfields, but Wilkins currently holds a 46 percent opportunity share, while fellow rookie Nyheim Hines has a 36 percent share. The workload is entirely evenly split three ways, so even when Mack returns from his injuries, his upside is simply not that high.
Mack’s teammates have more concrete roles (Wilkins leads the team with 4.0 rushing yards per attempt; Hines leads in targets per game with 5.0) and the fact that the Colts have drastically trended away from their running backs over this season – 33 running back opportunities in Week 1, 29 in Week 2, and 18 in Week 3 – means you can probably find better fantasy options on the waiver wire.
