Nyheim Hines’ ADP places him in an intriguing part of fantasy football drafts, where managers are looking for bench options to either provide upside or security, depending on need. At his ADP, is Hines a solid pick in fantasy football drafts, or does he lack both the upside and the floor to return value?
Nyheim Hines ADP | Is he worth his current price in fantasy drafts?
Hines’ current ADP for redraft leagues is reasonably flat across the scoring systems. His ADP in non-PPR is the highest, just outside the top 125. His ADP in half-PPR is similar, also outside the top 125, while his full-PPR ADP is closer to 135th overall. Across the three formats, he’s being selected just outside the top 45 at the position.
In a 12-team league, Hines’ ADP is placing him just outside the 10th round as a mid-to-late pick in Round 11 or an early pick in Round 12. Interestingly, his ADP is relatively flat across some of the main sites but drops right off to 196th overall as the RB56 on NFL.com.
Nyheim Hines’ projected fantasy value in 2022
Hines is an intriguing player to project for the 2022 season. His usage over the past four seasons presents a pattern. Starting with snap counts, Hines played 44% of the snaps as a rookie but dropped to between 32-36% in the three years since then.
Hines’ actual usage in terms of touches was similar in 2018 and 2020 (148 and 152), while the usage was similar in 2019 and 2021 (96). On a per-snap basis, the outlier year is 2020. In the other years, Hines saw around a 30% snap-to-touches ratio in 2018, 2019, and 2021, but that rose to 38% in 2020. To try and keep this simple, we will focus on the three years where he saw a 32-36% snap share to compare his performances (2019-21).
Hines finished 2019 and 2021 with an average of 552.5 total yards and five total touchdowns. When it comes to 2020, that rose to 862 yards and seven touchdowns. Those differences saw Hines average 4.1 fantasy points per game in non-PPR in the two lower usage years compared to 8.1 ppg in 2020. The story was the same in PPR, with Hines nearly scoring double in 2020 (12.1 ppg) compared to 6.6 ppg in the other two years.
The problem is what all of those per-game numbers mean. Averaging 6.6 fantasy points per week in PPR makes Hines an RB5 on average and often a low RB5. However, across the course of the year, he finishes as a low-end RB4. In contrast, the 2020 numbers are low-end RB2 territory, which is fantastic, but was a one-in-three type performance when the Colts were easing in a rookie RB in Jonathan Taylor.
So, that raises the question of how you approach Hines. Is he a solid bench option you can trust on a bye week, or is he a player that is essentially a replacement-level option better left to the bench?
How consistent is Hines as a fantasy asset?
One of the things that people point to with Hines is that at the end of the year, he’s generally at least a solid RB4 for fantasy managers. Yet, an RB4 is usually a bye-week or injury fill-in, not a start-every-week type player in 12 or 14-team leagues.
Therefore, you want them to be consistent week to week so you can start them in a pinch and know what you’re getting. Even Hines, who is an RB5 in terms of ppg, is fine in that role if he is consistent.
In 2021, that was not the case. Hines finished the year with 112.6 fantasy points at 6.6 PPR ppg. However, 53.9 of those total points came in three weeks (1, 3, and 9). That’s 48% of his total points scored in just three games. In the remaining 14 games, he averaged 4.2 ppg, which would have made him the RB88 in terms of ppg.
The 2020 season was somewhat similar. Hines scored 94.5 of his 193.2 points in four weeks (49% of his total). Across the other 12 weeks, he averaged 8.2 ppg and finished with less than 10 points in five separate weeks. Better, but still not great for a fill-in you can trust.
It was just as tricky in 2019, where Hines scored single-digit points in 13 of 16 weeks. Single-digit returns are, on average, outside of the RB3 range, although that fluctuates based on the week and the number of players on a bye. In that season, Hines scored in double digits just twice. He was neither a floor nor a ceiling play, he was just unpredictable.
Should you draft Hines in 2022?
So what we have here is a running back in Hines that has scored double digits in PPR (RB3 average threshold) in just 14 weeks out of 49. In the last two seasons, more than 45% of his returns for the season have come in a combined seven weeks out of 33. Essentially, we have a player that does very little for fantasy managers. You cannot be sure when you start him that he’ll return even RB3 value, and your chance of hitting on a “boom” week are around 20%. Those are not great odds.
The problem is that come season’s end, Hines will likely finish as a mid-to-low-end RB4, and that’s what people remember. He is also a back that sees at least 100 opportunities, including 50 targets per season, and is viewed as Taylor’s primary backup. Thus, Hines is ranked inside the top 50 in PPR formats in PFN’s consensus 2022 RB fantasy rankings.
The key to knowing whether to draft Hines is to work out your mindset. If you’re simply taking him as the likely handcuff to Taylor, that’s one thing. But taking him with the attitude of “I can trust him in my bye week” is not correct. Hines is too unpredictable for that. You might strike it lucky, but it’s more likely you don’t strike it good.
Hines has limited standalone value for fantasy managers outside of Best Ball formats. His main value is if Taylor were to get hurt, which is tough to predict.
On a week-to-week basis, there are better value selections than Hines. He might end the year above a lot of the players going around him in fantasy points, but if the majority of those points were on your bench, and when you used him, you got an RB5 or worse return, what did you really gain?
