Each Monday morning following a week’s worth of NFL action we’ll break it all down here inside the locker room to give you the top-10 fantasy relevant nuggets from the week that was. A focus on 10 specific observations from the weekend’s action that will help you build your fantasy team in the short and long term.
All set? Here goes for Week 2:
1) Bad News in Dallas, Unless…
You’re a Terrance Williams investor. Williams had a nice week and finished second on the Cowboys in targets in Week 2. The ‘Boys D held up remarkably well this week (actually, it’s at least equal parts on the Eagles just played terrible side of the ledger… and we’ll get to that), but, that won’t always be the case. With Tony Romo out for the foreseeable future, if not the year, you’d have to figure that Dallas is going to wind up trailing in the second half a lot.
Jason Witten will do his work between the 20s but if Dallas finds themselves behind it is Williams and his big play ability that he team will be relying on. Weeden, who posted a 7/7 passing line after coming in in relief of Romo, should still have plenty of time to pass behind Dallas’ line and will be looking for Williams often. The third year receiver made a few sharp plays both over the middle of the field and on the outside this week, and while he dropped a perfect pass from Romo before the QB’s injury (something that he has, and will continue to struggle with) he showed enough this week to suggest that he can make the plays when given the opportunity and I’m expecting those opportunities to come. From a purely gameflow perspective, I like Williams as much or more with Weeden than I did with Romo.
2) Money Manziel is all about the Benjamin(s)
Johnny Manziel wasn’t asked to do much this week, and he completed just over 50% of his 15 pass attempts when he was, but, he and Travis Benjamin (who also had a special teams score) connected on two big pass plays for scores (and three receptions overall). Manziel’s status as the starter in Week 3 and beyond remains uncertain, though, it would be a surprise to see the team go back to McCown at this point. If they stick with him, Benjamin is clearly his go to guy. Knowing that Cleveland won’t be in control of the game on a regular basis, Manziel is going to be asked to throw a lot more than this week’s 15 attempts and he looked Benjmain’s way more than 25% of the time this week, to lead the team.
Moreover, he showed enough touch to hit the speedster deep when he got free. Both players will be boom or bust candidates, but, the development of their chemistry is something worth watching assuming Manziel holds onto the job.
3) Brady’s arm is doing the talking
Tom Brady was surgical against a tough Buffalo defense (Photo: Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images North America).
There was a lot of hype around New England’s visit to Buffalo in Week 2, fueled in part by the Bills’ (and their head Coach’s) open discussion of hatred of the Patriots. As is often the case, the Pats kept quiet and let their play do the talking. Finding motivation in perceived slights is common across the league, but the Patriots seem to do it quite well.
On the season long scale, they certainly seemed to have found a little extra juice in 2007 following the spygate scandal and the parallels to their 2015 offseason are obvious. In a year when many veteran QBs of his age are facing questions about their arm strength (Drew Brees was evidently injured against Tampa, but he looked awful this week), Brady is looking his best through two weeks.
I’m not trying to say that getting busted deflating balls is making the Patriots better at football, but, I will say that it may be impacting the way they call their games. Tom Brady was allowed to pass the ball 59 times in a game that the Patriots led 37-13 entering the 4th quarter. That willingness to pass could be argued to have played a role in Buffalo’s comeback, and it could also be argued as an effort to make a statistical statement. Of course, it could also have something to do with a gameplan to stay away from Buffalo’s interior defensive line (see point 4), but… Week 2 had the stink of a Belichick team looking for revenge which could actually be great news for the fantasy prospects of anyone touching the New England passing game if it continues.
On that note, Aaron Dobson is now officially touching the NE passing game. They’re unlikely to throw it quite as often over the course of the season so we’ll have to take his eight targets with a grain of salt, but, Dobson was on the field early in certain red zone packages and wound up with seven catches for 87 yards. In deeper leagues, he’s worth a speculative add if you have space.
4) Blount is a bust
In Week 2 he was, anyway. Meanwhile, Dion Lewis impressed again. Lewis carried seven times for 40 yards and a score, adding six receptions for 98. Lewis put the ball on the ground twice, and managed to survive a benching from coach Bill Belichick which was perhaps a more impressive feat than anything he did with his legs.
Blount owners needn’t fret, however. While there is nothing encouraging about the fact that he received just two carries in his return to the lineup, Lewis was simply a better fit for the game plan against Buffalo. Blount’s bruising interior style doesn’t play so well against the Bills’ big front seven, while Lewis getting the ball in space worked just fine for the Pats. With a coach who rotates his back’s use regularly, Blount will be hard to predict this season but it isn’t as if Lewis is the new bell cow. With the Jags on deck, I’d expect Blount to be adding plenty of second half carries in Week 3.
On the note of RBs who fumbled, Adrian Peterson also dropped two balls but that fact will be largely forgotten given how he powered the Vikings to the win this week with 192 total yards. The same couldn’t be said for Jeremy Hill and Carlos Hyde, however. Hyde was held out after a head injury, given that the game was out of hand… Hill, meanwhile, let the ball loose twice and found himself sitting as Giovani Bernard. The Hill/Bernard situation is generally well defined, and Hill’s role on early downs isn’t in any apparent risk, but, the fact that the Bengals have a solid back paired with him in the rotation is something important to remember when relying on Hill moving forward.
5) Jeremy Langford gets some work
I’ve had an eye on Langford in dynasty and keeper formats all season, and while this week’s outing doesn’t make him relevant in redraft leagues per se, it does put him on the map. Moreover, it may have an impact on Matt Forte‘s output over the course of the season.
Forte is likely on his way out in Chicago with this being the final year on his contract and Langford is auditioning to replace him this year. In Week 2, the rookie back had a drive all to himself and capped it with a touchdown. All told, he finished with six carries for 21 yards and the score, but that he cut into Forte’s snaps at all is noteworthy. Forte investors familiar with his role in recent years under Marc Trestman won’t be used to him coming off the field. If that continues – and with Forte’s age and contract status, it should – it will cap the veteran backs upside.
LeSean McCoy finds himself in a similar situation to monitor in Buffalo. Rookie Karlos Williams checked in to vulture an early goal line score, and while McCoy was dealing with an injury this week he was regularly replaced in similar situations toward the end of last year in Philadelphia, suggesting that perhaps both staffs were worried about his effectiveness in that area of the field.
Finally, rookie Melvin Gordon has looked solid in his first two games for San Diego but is yielding red zone work to the under-sized-but-effective Danny Woodhead.
Right now, we’re just watching the trends… but, you’ll have to watch.
6) Matt Jones gets his own bullet
The Jones/Morris situation could easily have been a footnote to the above statement, but, Jones’s performance warrants its own discussion. After Alfred Morris‘ unexpectedly strong outing against Miami to start the season, anyone (i.e. me) who was hearkening Morris’ decline appeared to have a bit of pie on their face.
And then, he started this week solid against St. Louis. In fact, he had a decent game in his own right. He couldn’t hold a candle to Jones though. All told, Washington was able to hide Kirk Cousins by carrying the ball 37 times against St. Louis and that’s going to be their game plan more often than not. In those games, there should be enough work for Morris (who was out-carried 19-18, but whose owners can’t complain about an 18 carry week). In games where Washington falls behind, things could get interesting. Morris doesn’t have the profile of a pass catcher, while Jones’ skills in that area were lauded coming out of college.
When there aren’t 18+ carries each to go around, it seems like we’re looking at a hot hand situation in Washington. In reality, that makes both backs tough to trust. Morris is still probably the better interior runner, and indeed most of Jones’ production came on carries to the outside this week. Though, if I had to wager on the hotter hand over the course of the season I’m starting to lean with the guy who can do this.
7) More Rookies were productive
Rookie hype is in full force through the offseason, and in the early part of the year. Its hard not to overreact to big plays in the early weeks, as in most cases we’re just seeing what players can do for the first time. With that in mind, there were a couple of other performance worth highlighting.
David Johnson‘s Week 2 got off to a great start with a 108 yard kick return, and he later found the end zone as a rusher as well. All told, he had just seven touches which were considerably less than Chris Johnson‘s but if DJ keeps performing with Andre Ellington out his share of the current workload split could grow and it could certainly impact Ellington when he comes back.
Meanwhile, Dorial Green-Beckham scored his first career TD as well. Check out the high-point ability over Joe Haden in the vine below:
Subtext DGB:
Rookie DGB beats Joe Haden for the big score. https://t.co/vgaWfjQ4vz
— Pro Football Focus (@PFF) September 20, 2015
Then, contemplate this tweet:
*Hope* Harry Douglas‘ 9-yards-on-8-targets day expedites the growth of Dorial Green-Beckham‘s role. DGB beat Haden for TD on Sunday. — Evan Silva (@evansilva) September 20, 2015
I was high on Douglas given that projected volume this week, but if he’s not going to do anything productive with it then the team should begin to shift it to Green-Beckham. I wouldn’t expect that change to take place wholesale in Week 3, but, I’d anticipate it being the case over time.
8) Positional Matchups Matter
Listen, you can’t make any sensible observations about the way a team defends a position through two weeks, but over the course of the season FPPG allowed to opposing positions (and sub-types of players within those positions) forms the basis of a lot of my rankings and decision making.
At this point, I’m monitoring Oakland’s TE defense. They tightened up in the second half, while Baltimore shifted their attention to Steve Smith Sr. in the passing game, but, Crockett Gillmore scored twice in the first half for Baltimore. Put that on top of Tyler Eifert‘s two TDs in the opener, and, I’m taking notice. It’s not enough to have me on the Gary Barnidge bandwagon for Week 3, but, I could definitely be into Martellus Bennett as a DFS play the following week.
While on the subject of Oakland, credit them for a big win at home against the Ravens this week. David Carr was sharp throughout the game and engineered an excellent game winning drive late. He made good use of Michael Crabtree as well, with the Ravens shifting defensive attention to Amari Cooper as the game moved along.
9) All things being equal, give me the running QB
Owners with shaky QB situations likely found themselves choosing between Cam and a comparable option, or Tyrod off the waiver wire. Taylor’s performance was aided by the above-noted 4th Quarter comeback, but, he ran one in and found a total of 10.3 points on the ground with five carries.
Newton, meanwhile, participated in an abysmal football game Sunday afternoon (not Eagles-Cowboys bad, but, pretty close). Still, he made enough plays to make a big fantasy contribution. Newton completed fewer than 50% of his passes and an 18/37, 195-2TD-INT line won’t win you any fantasy contests. Adding 76 yards and a score on the ground turns that sub-par outing into a huge performance, netting somewhere around 30 points depending on your scoring. Plus, he taught Josh McCown how to helicopter.
10) Is it fixable in Philly?
Yes. Probably. But, in the meantime it looked awful this week. Jordan Matthews got his in garbage time, but otherwise you didn’t want to be anywhere near the steaming pile of Eagles on Sunday. DeMarco Murray managed two yards on 13 carries and led all backs in rushing. In fact, the team’s RBs finished for negative yards.
Elsewhere, Sam Bradford had his share of gaffes as well though I’m putting the performance of both groups on the offensive line. Chip Kelly changed personnel on the interior of that line during training camp, and they couldn’t block anyone this week. All of the discussion in fantasy circles is going to center on how the first/second round pick is failing his owners, but, Murray was hit behind the line every time he touched the ball this week and he really didn’t have a chance.
Think I’m being too kind to the new Eagles RB? Rotoworld.com shares a much more stark assessment of the line play:
Sunday was a divine comedy, with Murray getting pulverized for continual losses behind an offensive line that allowed more penetration than a strainer.
We spent the offseason hearing about how anyone could run behind the great offensive line in Dallas. Now, Murray finds himself on the flip side: no one can run behind this Eagles line. In reality, it’s likely to get worse before its get better. But, with new players getting used to one another and lined up in new spots, it is possible that it is simply taking time to gel.
I wouldn’t give up much to get him, that’s for sure, but I’ll be putting some feelers out for the buy(ultra) low opportunity on Murray after a down week.
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