| | | | Monday, October 10, 2022 | | If you thought filling out your lineup has been tough over the past few weeks, just you wait. Week 5 was the last week without any byes until Week 14, so now we've gotta deal with that. In addition to teams like the Rams and Bengals -- teams we expected to be dominant offensively -- playing most of the season so far like they've been on a perpetual bye. | | It's been a frustrating start to the season, and Sunday's games were no exception -- Tee Higgins being active but only playing 10 catchless snaps before leaving the game was just the cheery on top of the day for me, personally, since he's my second-most rostered player this season. But, I managed to get a win with Higgins in my lineup and Gabe Davis on my bench, somehow, which helps it go down a little easier. | | Hopefully you made it through Sunday's games in line for a win, too. In case you missed it, I went over the injuries you need to know about and the early Week 6 waiver-wire targets Sunday night, and this newsletter is all about sorting through everything else from Sunday. Well, not everything, but the things you need to know about, at least. As always, here are my thoughts on the entire Week 6 schedule, with winners and losers, playing time notes, and more for every game. | | As always, if you've got any questions about what we saw Sunday or what to do for Week 6 and beyond, send them my way with the subject line "#AskFFT" to Chris.Towers@ViacomCBS.com to get included in an upcoming edition of the newsletter. | | | | Week 5 Recap | | | | Giants 27-Packers 22 | | Winner: Saquon Barkley . What more can we say about Barkley at this point? He looks like the best running back in football, a rare talent who is actually able to overcome his mediocre surroundings. You know how we like to say RBs don't matter? Right now, Barkley does. He left this game briefly with a shoulder injury but was able to play through it without apparent issue. He has 100-plus yards four of five games so far this season and is on pace for 2,298 yards from scrimmage, which would be the 12th-most in NFL history. Not bad for a second-round pick in a bad offense. Loser: AJ Dillon. The Packers game plan in this one was weird -- they led pretty much the entire way but still had just 20 rush attempts to 41 dropbacks. Dillon wasn't even targeted and had just six carries for his worst game of the season, though this was his fourth straight with fewer than 10 PPR points. Prior to Week 5, Dillon had at least 14 touches in every game, so better days should be ahead, but this highlighted that there is still some downside in his profile. One more thing: The Packers threw a bunch in this one but Randall Cobb was somehow the only player with more than 35 receiving yards, which is just about a worst-case scenario for this offense from a Fantasy perspective. Allen Lazard did at least have eight targets and a touchdown, his third in four games, and Romeo Doubs ran a route on 36 of 41 dropbacks, so I'm not too worried about that. Still, it does make me think that none of these wide receivers is good enough to demand targets -- not yet, at least. | | | | Bills 38-Steelers 3 | | Injuries: Pat Freiermuth (concussion) -- Freiermuth suffered two concussions last season without missing a game, but obviously there's some risk of him missing some time given that history. He'll have to be cleared through the protocol before he is able to play in Week 6. Winner: Gabe Davis. You were surely a little worried about starting Davis if you did this week, so this was a nice reminder that he's the kind of guy who can justify a spot in your lineup with a single play. In fact, he did it twice Sunday, with touchdowns of 98 and 62 yards in the first 25 minutes of the game. Some might say that Davis was due for this kind of performance after being a full participant in practice for the first time since Week 1, but I just kind of think this is who he is -- a downfield-oriented receiver who doesn't necessarily demand a ton of targets but earns extremely valuable targets when he does. Even in this game, he had a 17% target share with six targets on 33 routes run -- pretty middling rates. When he hits on the big plays, Davis is going to be incredible; when he doesn't he'll frustrate you. He's the latest version of the DeSean Jackson/Mike Williams/DK Metcalf archetype, and you should probably just leave him in your lineup and stop worrying about him. Loser: Devin Singletary. There's a pretty clear pattern here: In three games the Bills have won handily, Devin Singletary has played between 52% and 59% of the snaps. In the two close games, he played 73% and 88%. When the games are competitive, the Bills trust Singletary more than Zack Moss and James Cook, but he has just 17.9 points combined in the three big wins. The good news, I suppose, is that the Bills are favored by just two points in Week 6 against the Chiefs. One more thing: The Steelers did the right thing by benching Mitchell Trubisky, but we all knew Kenny Pickett had his work cut out for him with his first start coming on the road against a ferocious Bills defense. And he predictably struggled, going 34 for 52 for 327 yards with no touchdowns and an interception. It's hard to take too much from his first start, given the matchup, but it was heartening to see Diontae Johnson re-establish himself as the team's No. 1 target, earning 13 targets. George Pickens had eight and Chase Claypool had nine, though I will note that six of them came in the fourth quarter. I wouldn't take too much from that. | | | | Chargers 30-Browns 28 | Winner: Austin Ekeler. If Ekeler's career has taught us anything, it's that worrying about touchdowns just doesn't make much sense for him. It is, perhaps, a little bit concerning that Ekeler wasn't on the field for any of the three plays the Chargers ran from inside the 5-yard line -- Joshua Kelley scored a touchdown from 5 yards out -- however he had been out there for five of seven such snaps before this week, so I'm not sure if there's much to take from that. It's not like Kelley was just brought on for one snap from the 5 -- he had been in the previous few snaps before they got in close. Ekeler's first touchdown came in a goal-to-go situation, too. Like I said last week: I'm not going to hold Ekeler scoring from 10 and 22 yards out against him.
Loser: There really isn't a great choice here, though the Chargers' complementary receivers were pretty big duds. Josh Palmer had just three catches for 24 yards on six targets, while Gerald Everett had just one catch for 2 yards. I think you're probably still starting them if Keenan Allen is out next week, but neither is a good enough player to just be a set-it-and-forget-it guy. One more thing: Derrick Henry's past few seasons have taught me not to be too quick to write off the potential for an elite rusher to continue to produce elite numbers without catching passes. Chubb had 134 yards on 17 carries with two touchdowns, including one of those long touchdowns where he showed his unreal balance and burst in a way few backs can. He probably can't sustain his current 2,000-yard, 20-plus touchdown pace, but the Browns obviously want to get him 20-ish carries every week, and his big-play ability makes him a threat for these kinds of performances every week. | | Texans 13-Jaguars 6 | | Winner: Dameon Pierce. Pierce is not just some replacement-level plodder, that much seems certain. He broke a 75-yard touchdown last week and then evoked Marshawn Lynch on a ridiculous 20-yard run where he broke roughly 27 tackles, give or take. Perhaps just as importantly, he ran a route on more than half of the team's pass plays -- more than nominal passing downs back Rex Burkhead. He played 79% of the snaps, and while I still view Pierce as more of an RB2, you're probably putting him in your lineup every week. Loser: James Robinson. 10 carries for 27 yards and two catches for 12 yards is not exactly what we had in mind. Robinson continues to cede valuable snaps to Travis Etienne , and he has now played fewer than half the team's snaps in consecutive games. Robinson made me look pretty stupid for being skeptical of him through the first three games, but he's had a pretty limited passing game role and has been pretty big-play dependent on the ground -- he has four carries of at least 20 yards accounting for 45% of his yardage. Those long runs still count, but Robinson still didn't look particularly fast on those long runs -- a someone who follows me on Twitter put it, "He looked fast for somebody a year from a Achilles tear, but slow for a good running back" -- and now that they've disappeared, he's looked pretty mediocre. Robinson isn't just going to go away, but this might be Travis Etienne's backfield before long. One more thing: Christian Kirk got a mulligan for a down Week 4 because, though he caught just two passes, it came on nine targets, as he continued to see a significant role in the offense. It's harder to write off Sunday's showing. He had just one catch for 11 yards on just three targets -- four different players had more targets for the Jags. Coverage can dictate usage in one-game sample sizes, and Kirk still let all Jaguars WRs in snaps and routes run, so hopefully it's just a blip on the radar. | | Vikings 29-Bears 22 | Winner: Justin Jefferson. Jefferson now has at least 11 targets in four of five games, and this new-look offense is more or less benefiting him exactly as we hoped. The Vikings are throwing it 40 times per game and he has a 28% target share, leading to these massive performances. And this week's 12-catch, 154-yard performance could have been even bigger -- he was ruled down inside the 1-yard line on the Vikings first drive, with Dalvin Cook punching it in on the next play.
Loser: Khalil Herbert. With David Montgomery coming back from his injury, I thought we might see a bigger role for Herbert this week. He played just 13 of 47 snaps, and it's not like he looked better than Montgomery -- in fact, it was Montgomery who had two of the Bears four plays of at least 20 yards Sunday. For as good as Herbert looked in Montgomery's absence, it doesn't look like he earned a bigger role. One more thing: I thought Justin Fields actually looked pretty good in this game, but I just don't think it's going to be enough to really matter in this offense. The Bears don't run many plays because they don't move the ball well, probably because they're too reliant on the run game. But they don't seem to trust their passing game to hold up to more opportunities. For what it's worth, the 21-24 run-pass split is a bit exaggerated -- they called 29 passes, but Fields was sacked twice and scrambled four more times. | | Patriots 29-Lions 0 | | Injuries: Damien Harris (hamstring) -- Rhamondre Stevenson took advantage Harris' injury and a great matchup to dominate this week, finishing with 161 yards on 25 carries plus 14 yards on a couple of catches. He's got a tougher matchup for Week 6 against the Browns, but if Harris is out, Stevenson will probably be a top-12 RB for me. Winner: Jakobi Meyers. Meyers has been pigeon-holed as a high-floor, low-ceiling player for Fantasy, but someone forgot to tell him that, as he has 19.5 or more PPR points in two of three games this season, one with fourth-round rookie Bailey Zappe in at QB. I'm not sure I buy this apparent star turn over the past two games, but it's nice to see him showing this kind of upside even with DeVante Parker added to the passing game. Loser: Jared Goff. It's hard to know how to react to a performance like this from a player like Goff. On the one hand, 19-for-35 for 229 yards and no touchdowns is pretty standard for Goff's career, especially against a defense like New England's. So, how much should we hold it against him, relative to the heightened expectations the first four weeks created? I'm tempted to basically reset my expectations for Goff to the preseason, but it'll be harder to do that if he has a healthy Amon-Ra St. Brown and D'Andre Swift back in Week 7. That being said, I'm probably not stashing him through the Week 6 bye in one-QB leagues. One more thing: Coming into the game, I treated Amon-Ra St. Brown as one of the "If he's active, he's in my lineup" guys. Unfortunately, he ended up playing just 20 of 64 passes and clearly wasn't 100% healthy coming back from his ankle injury. That has not diminished my enthusiasm for him one bit, however -- he's a top-12 WR as soon as the Lions bye is finished. | | Saints 39-Seahawks 32 | | Injuries: Chris Olave (concussion) -- Olave hit his head on the turf after catching a touchdown and was pretty much immediately ruled out. He'll have to go through the concussion protocol before being cleared to play in Week 7, so that'll be something to watch closely throughout the week. The Saints were already missing Michael Thomas (foot) and Jarvis Landry (ankle) ... Rashaad Penny (ankle) -- Penny suffered a fractured tibia and will miss some time. How much time remains to be seen, but it wouldn't be a surprise if this were a season-ender. Either way, Kenneth Walker is arguably the best waiver-wire add of the season so far. Winner: Alvin Kamara . And my faith in Alvin Kamara. Kamara had 103 yards on 23 carries, and more importantly, six catches for 91 yards -- a 24% target share. It's a little frustrating that Taysom Hill got a carry on the only two plays the Saints ran from inside the 10-yard line, but he also scored on both, so I don't think you can really complain too much. Kamara will get his opportunities in the future, and while Hill's presence figures to be a source of annoyance moving forward, if Kamara is featured in the passing game, that will lessen the impact. He has 13 carries in his past two games, so I'm confident he's going to be an elite RB moving forward. Loser: There are only a handful of players who matter in Fantasy for these two teams, and they pretty much all played well. So, everyone wins!One more thing: I jinxed Jared Goff by finally believing in him this week, so I hope I don't do the same with Geno Smith, who continued to play outstanding ball with three touchdowns in this one. Say what you want about the Seahawks coaching staff, but they're funneling the majority of their targets to Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf, which is a pretty good way to get the most out of your quarterback. I probably won't rank Smith as a top-12 QB for Week 6 against the Cardinals , but I'll have to give it some thought for sure. | | Jets 40-Dolphins 17 | | Injuries: Teddy Bridgewater (head/elbow) -- With Tua Tagovailoa out with a concussion, Bridgewater took a shot on the first play of the game and was ruled out due to the league's new concussion protocol -- despite reportedly clearing the concussion testing. He'll have to remain symptom-free to be able to play in Week 6 ... Tyreek Hill (foot) -- Hill got stepped on late in the game and was in a walking boot afterward, but Mike McDaniel and Hill's agent indicated it wasn't much of a concern. We'll have to keep an eye on this one this week. Winner: Raheem Mostert. The Dolphins opened the season with Chase Edmonds as the lead back, but Mostert seemingly overtook him last week, and he made it official Sunday. Mostert led all Dolphins backs with 18 carries for 113 yards, and even added three targets -- other Dolphins backs combined for one. That he was able to be productive when nothing else was really working and the third-string QB was in seems to bode well for Mostert, and he's going to be in the RB2/3 range as long as he stays healthy. Loser: Garrett Wilson . This was a weird game, in that the Jets won it by a lot of points. That won't happen too often, so the lack of pass volume here is probably a fluke. However, Wilson just isn't standing out from his peers now -- Wilson, Elijah Moore, and Corey Davis all had exactly four targets while running between 18 and 22 routes. There's no clear No. 1 WR here, and with Zach Wilson still not really impressive, it's hard to justify using Wilson right now. Keep him stashed, but try to avoid using him if you can. One more thing: Breece Hall is really the winner here, but I wanted to highlight Mostert since he's still available in 20% of leagues on CBS. Hall has been treated like the clear No. 1 running back over the past two games and he showed off his considerable playmaking skills by going for 97 yards on the ground and 100 through the air. Hall played 68% of the snaps compared to 45% for Michael Carter , so while Carter is still going to have a role -- including, frustratingly, near the goal line in this one -- Hall has clearly emerged as the best of the Jets backs. He's an RB2 with clear RB1 upside if this offense continues to improve. | | Buccaneers 21-Falcons 15 | Winner: Leonard Fournette . I made a joke on Twitter Sunday about how the Bucs going more pass-heavy was obviously good news for Fournette, but it's still worth noting. The Bucs passed the ball 52 times compared to 20 non-Tom Brady runs in a game they led by 20 until the fourth quarter. That's great news for a passing game that is still trying to find itself, but it's also great news for Fournette, who caught 10 of 11 targets for 83 yards and a touchdown. Brady loves dumping the ball off to Fournette, and the Buccaneers offense is a lot better throwing than running, which means more touchdowns for Fournette. He had two of 'em Sunday, and he's an elite Fantasy RB again.
Loser: Drake London. The Falcons are the anti-Bucs -- they had 34 dropbacks to 27 designed runs despite trailing by 21 into the fourth quarter. This team doesn't really want to throw the ball, and when they do, Marcus Mariota is scrambling or being sacked on 16% of his dropbacks. London is an exceptionally talented player who is probably going to be exceptionally frustrating for Fantasy until the Falcons embrace the pass a little more. That is also true of Kyle Pitts, obviously, though the bar for him being good in Fantasy is at least a lot lower at tight end. One more thing: The Falcons couldn't run the ball quite as effectively this week as they had in previous weeks, but the RB split was pretty much what we expected: Tyler Allgeier had 13 carries, Caleb Huntley had eight, and Avery Williams had three. Allgeier ran routes on 19 of 34 dropbacks, by far the most among the trio, and he's the clear best RB here if you need one -- though he's probably just an RB3 right now. | | Titans 21-Commanders 17 | | Winner: Brian Robinson. Robinson was third on the team in RB snaps, which isn't much of a surprise as both Antonio Gibson and J.D. McKissic are going to be more involved in the passing game. However, I thought he might be the team's primary runner, and he was just that. In fact, he got nine of the team's 12 RB carries. We're probably a few weeks from being able to trust Robinson in this messy three-way split, but for his first game back from being shot just prior to the season, it was a pretty inspiring debut. Loser: Robert Woods. I don't want to give up on Woods, but he really needs to show us something. He'll get the chance with Treylon Burks on IR for the next three games, but Woods had just 37 yards on four catches on eight targets Sunday, and that just isn't going to get the job done. I prefer not to drop Woods, but I can't blame you if you can't keep the faith at this point. One more thing: Dyami Brown scored a couple of long touchdowns, but he probably shouldn't be someone you get too excited about on waivers this week. He needed a Jahan Dotson injury and still only ran a route on 37% of the team's dropbacks. | | 49ers 37-Panthers 16 | | Injuries: Baker Mayfield (leg) -- Mayfield left this game early and was spotting in a walking boot after the game. The exact nature of the injury isn't clear. Winner: Jeff Wilson. I'll admit, I was a bit skeptical that Wilson would be a difference maker as the 49ers lead back, but I probably should have just had faith in the system. He had 120 yards on 17 carries with a touchdown Sunday and now has at least 15 touches in all four games as a starter, with 100-plus yards in three of them -- he scored a touchdown in the other. He's been great and remains an RB2 as long as Elijah Mitchell is out. Loser: Deebo Samuel. I don't want to overreact here, but Samuel lined up in the backfield just once in this game and now has just four carries over the past two games. He still had a 30% target share in this one, and if he's going to get that kind of usage in the passing game, it can make up for whatever he might lose in the running game. But it makes his margin for error a lot slimmer in an offense that has not been overly impressive so far this season. One more thing: We're kind of stuck in limbo with D.J. Moore's Fantasy value -- he's been just good enough over the past two weeks that you can't quite write him off, but not nearly good enough to feel good about starting him. I'm probably just going to keep throwing him out there every week as a WR3 in the (possibly vain!) hope that his upside manifests, but if you have better options, I can't blame you. | | Eagles 20-Cardinals 17 | Injuries: James Conner (ribs)/Darrel Williams (knee) -- It's not clear if either injury is serious enough to put Week 6 in question, but Eno Benjamin might be a top-15 RB against the Seahawks if they're both out. Winner: It's sort of tough to come up with a player I feel better about coming out of this game than I did coming into it, which is weird, because it's not exactly overflowing with players I feel worse about. Rondale Moore was productive, which is nice to see, but he also only had only 18 total air yards in this one, a reversion to last year's low-ADoT usage -- and the pending return of DeAndre Hopkins in Week 7 makes it hard to know how much to take from him having a solid eight targets (which was still only third on the team). DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert were both awesome, but both fed largely on short-area designed throws, which probably isn't a recipe for consistent success (and won't be how they are used every week anyway). A weird game.
Loser: Kyler Murray . I keep saying that he'll probably be fine when DeAndre Hopkins is eligible to play in Week 7, and I think that's still the case, so I don't want to be too hard on Murray. And, to be fair, Sunday was just his second game with fewer than 24 points in six-point-per-pass-TD scoring, which is actually kind of stunning, because he's been so mediocre as a passer. I guess that's a reason to be optimistic, if anything -- his floor is still really, really high, and the ceiling is about to get a lot higher if Hopkins hits the ground running. One more thing: Fantasy analysis has gotten so much smarter than it used to be, but there's still that caveman part of our collective brains that can't help but devolve to pointing, grunting, and going, "Touchdowns good." And, hey, touchdowns good, you know. But it feels like the tone around Miles Sanders has shifted an awful lot since last season mostly because he scored a few touchdowns to open the season, and this game was a reminder that he's still got quite a bit of competition for carries at the goal line, even if the Eagles do trust him down there. It doesn't mean he won't score several more touchdowns this season and be a solid Fantasy option, but it is to say that his limited passing game role leaves him prone to disappointing games those weeks when Jalen Hurts ( Kenneth Gainwell or Boston Scott, eventually) punches it in instead of him. | | Cowboys 22-Rams 10 | Injuries: Dalton Schultz (knee) -- Schultz is playing through a sprained knee, and he bumped it during the second quarter and limped to the sidelines, unable to return. He's still worth stashing as long as this remains a short-term issue, however, the setback is obviously a concern. Winner: Michael Gallup. Slim pickings in a game that barely totaled 550 yards between the two teams, but Gallup's usage continues to be pretty promising. He ran a route on 17 of 19 dropbacks and was targeted five times. The Cowboys only threw the ball 16 times in the win, but that'll obviously improve when Dak Prescott is healthy enough to play, and this is looking like a very concentrated passing attack. Gallup has top-24 WR upside if he can stay healthy.
Loser: Matthew Stafford. It's the same story it's been all year -- unless he's targeting Cooper Kupp , Matthew Stafford really can't do anything. The Rams have played a pretty rough schedule so far and the line has been overwhelmed constantly, but the biggest issue here is just that this team doesn't have enough playmakers. Cooper Kupp had 125 yards on 10 targets, including 89 yards after the catch -- the rest of the team averaged 3.7 yards per play. Maybe Van Jefferson getting healthy can make a different, but it's hard to find much of anything to be optimistic about here. One more thing: The Rams seem to have a pure platoon backfield now. Darrell Henderson ran 25 routes to Cam Akers' five; Akers had 13 carries while Henderson had none. Given how bad this offense is right now, I'm trying to avoid using either one in my lineups if I can. | | Ravens 19-Bengals 17 | | Injuries: Tee Higgins (ankle) -- It's not clear if Higgins suffered a setback or just wasn't 100%, to begin with, but he played just 10 snaps over the team's first four series before taking a seat on the bench for the rest of the game. That's frustrating since we didn't really have much to suggest Higgins wouldn't be good to go for this one. It happens. Winner: Devin Duvernay. With Rashod Bateman (foot) out, the Ravens clearly made a point to get Duvernay involved, and he had seven targets on 32 passes and three carries, turning it into 78 scrimmage yards. Is he miscast as a No. 1 WR? Of course! But he doesn't need to be one when Bateman is healthy, and the way the Ravens used him was intriguing enough that I want to keep an eye on him moving forward. Duvernay is still a fringe starter in my eyes, but he might just turn into more than that. Loser: Joe Mixon . You could go any number of different ways here with the Bengals offense -- they attempted just six passes of 11 or more air yards against a defense that was tied for the NFL lead with the most such passes allowed entering the game. But it was disappointing to see Mixon's workload look more like previous seasons, as he was targeted just three times in this one, one fewer than Samaje Perine . Mixon's passing game usage overall wasn't much different -- he ran a route on 58% of dropbacks compared to 61% last week -- so I don't want to overreact. However, it was frustrating to see him ceding targets to Perine after having at least four in each of the first four games. Let's keep an eye on this and hope it doesn't become a trend, because Mixon looks a lot less interesting in this disappointing offense if he isn't going to be a big part of the passing game. One more thing: J.K. Dobbins is still having his snaps monitored, as he played 39% of them this week despite the absence of Justice Hill. That led to some disappointing production, as he had just eight carries for 44 yards with no targets in the passing game. It's not clear when Dobbins is going to be unleashed, but he's a touchdown-dependent RB3 right now. | | | | | | | | 24/7 Sports News | | JUST LAUNCHED: Nike Zoom Pegasus 39! | ✔Scores & Highlights
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