Michael Carter Fights Bam Knight to RB1 Status Amid Emari Demercado High-Ankle Sprain
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The Arizona Cardinals Running Back room will be studied for some time. It went from James Conner to Trey Benson to Michael Carter to Emari Demercado to Zonovan Knight back to Demercado and now lands back with Knight with a chance of Carter. This is due to the injury that Demercado suffered in Week 11, listing him doubtful for Week 12. We will now reevaluate this Cardinals offense with its Week 12 depth chart.
Week 12 Running Back Room
It appears that Demercado will be out in Week 12, so the depth chart will list Knight as RB1 and Carter as RB2. No one else should show up in here, especially on short notice.
In Week 11, Carter saw his workload rise back up to contest on RB1 status. Carter had 43% of snaps while Knight had 42%. Much of Carter's work went down in the second half.
What we can expect, reasonably, is that Carter will now actually takeover the role of RB1 status. Whether that shows up on the depth chart or not, I do not know, but I do know what these statistics show us.
All along, I had personally thought that Carter was better than Knight. It does not surprise me to see him overtake Knight. This could have been telegraphed awhile ago that Carter would surpass Knight given the fact that Demercado had already done it, despite the ever excruciating fumble earlier this season.
I would project the snap-share to be something like this:
- Michael Carter - 60-70%
- Zonovan Knight - 30-40%
The output may be volatile in terms of the true share, but Carter should out-snap Knight, no doubt about it.
Stock Watch
The Cardinals do love to run the ball, but they have struggled to do so given their depth chart. This has renders a once run-heavy team to be a pass-heavy team, ranked 3rd in pass-rate at 63%.
The team averages 105.7 Rushing Yards per Game. Without Kyler Murray threatening, that number dips closer to 85-90 Yards per Game. That would split 40-50 Yards to Carter, 20-30 Yards to Knight, and the balance to miscellaneous.
The Cardinals do also run the ball less than 40% of the time in the Red Zone. They face the Jaguars who are the 2nd best unit versus the run, allowing 86.7 Yards per Game.
Michael Carter will be a Flex option with RB2 upside.
Zonovan Knight is a must-bench will lacking handcuff value, given the due return of Trey Benson.
Emari Demercado Sidelined with High-Ankle Sprain
A high-ankle sprain took Demercado this past Sunday and his season may lack any value to be had in Fantasy Football. An injury such as this could have him sidelines 1-2 weeks, or the rest of the season and only seven weeks remain. Regardless, Benson is due back in the coming weeks and would likely jump right ahead of Demercado in line.
Once Demercado is back, he will likely be vying for RB3 duties. You can drop Demercado at this point, saving an IR spot any other bad luck.
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Thomas Carelli is a sportswriter based on Northern New Jersey. He is a massive New York Jets and Mets fan, but that is not where is sports fandom stops. He loves to watch and play golf, all things football, baseball, and much more. If he can watch it, he will. Thomas graduated from William Paterson University in 2018 with a Bachelor's Degree in Sport Management. He spent 4 years working at a local golf course, volunteered past PGA events, and spent some part-time experience with the New York Jets events team. His passions for sport runs deep and his articles show for it.