Pretty boring game back on Thursday. The Broncos couldn’t move the ball and the Chiefs are really not looking like their usual juggernaut self. They went for a strong 5.8 yards per play here, but they did not blow the doors off this bad Broncos defense like we would have expected.
Pacheco took 16 of the 18 RB carries, so it’s still clearly his backfield, but it’s really hard to say anybody Mahomes & Kelce are must-starts for fantasy purposes.
On the Broncos side, it was really ugly. They were dead last in the league this week with just 4.0 yards per play. Russell Wilson went for a 59% comp%, a 1:2 TD:INT, and a really awful 4.3 YPA.
The backfield stuff for Denver got even uglier.
Snaps: McLaughlin (20), Williams (17), Perine (8) Carries: Williams (11-52), McLaughlin (7-30)
Courtland Sutton added a late touchdown to make a decent day for him, he’s really the only clear fantasy starter on this team. He has averaged a dozen fantasy points per week so far, and this offense still is in the middle of the pack rather than being a legitimately bad unit.
For fantasy purposes this offense is pretty sparse. Lamar Jackson is a solid QB option, of course, but the backfield is a mess.
Season stats for these RBs since week 1 (since Dobbins has been gone): Edwards: 64-250-1 rushing, 3-13-0 receiving Hill: 29-141-1 rushing, 10-25-0 receiving
Their offense isn’t awful but it’s not one that’s going to score a bunch of touchdowns, and Lamar steals so much of the rushing work that it makes it tough for a RB to become viable, especially these guys that really aren’t all that great comparitively.
Zay Flowers went 6-50-1, that was his first touchdown of the year. He had a 29% target share for the year, and Andrews is behind him at 20% (It’s 26% for Flowers and 23% for Andrews in games they both played). Andrews is obviously the guy here given the position, and Flowers has been a very startable WR thus far (18, 11, 13, 8, 12, 17 fantasy points so far).
Titans
This is one of the ugliest offenses in the league from a fantasy perspective. Derrick Henry hasn’t been his first-round self, but did rip off a 12-97-1 line in this one, very much aided by a 64 yard run. His carry counts are down this year because of the offense and because they clearly want to work in this Spears guy, he’s run the ball just 15, 25, 11, 22, 13, and 12 times - so that really lowers the floor on the guy. I’d probably be looking to bail on him if possible.
Just when you think their offense is #back, they go out and average just 4.1 yards per play against the Seahawks. Joe Burrow went just 24/35 for 185 yards, 2 TD, and an interception. That puts him at a 5.32 YPA for the year, second-worst to Bryce Young. Joe Mixon ran the ball just a dozen times while Burrow threw it 35 times. Not good stuff for Burrow, but he’s proven enough for us not to doubt that he can bounce-back after this bye week (although they get the 49ers out of the bye).
The offensive woes have really hurt Higgins and Mixon the most, Chase has still managed a pretty decent season line of 50-556-3 this year, although most of that was last week.
Seahawks
Two big interceptions from Geno Smith in a losing effort, but a solid enough 7.88 YPA and 323 total yards.
It’s pretty straight forward with the Seahawks, Kenneth Walker continues to dominate the backfield with 22 touches yesterday, and the targets went as normal: Metcalf (10), Lockett (5), JSN (5), Parkinson (4), Walker (3), Charbonnet (2), Bobo (2)
It’s a pretty good offense for fantasy purposes with pretty concentrated and clear workloads, and you would think that they’d score more points moving forward given that they are more than competent at every position there.
Little bit of a statement game here for the Browns defense, stifling the 49ers offense after they scored a quick touchdown on their first drive.
It was by far the worst game of Brock Purdy’s season, and probably career with a 4.81 YPA and a 1:1 TD:INT.
Christian McCaffrey got hurt, and Jordan Mason took over after he left with a 5-27-1 line, although it was with Elijah Mitchell still out to injury. If CMC is out next week and Mitchell comes back, Mitchell is probably the guy you want, but more than likely neither will be very useful for fantasy unless they find their way into the endzone (which is likely). They play next Monday Night, so there’s a chance we don’t even have the final news on CMC until then.
Browns
The RB stuff is the only real interesting part here with the Browns, especially because this was a PJ Walker game.
Tough to start either guy with that split going on, and unless Watson comes back and actually plays well, this doesn’t profile as a high-scoring offense anyway.
It wasn’t good for Gardner Minshew, but he got there for fantasy purposes with 329 yards on a ridiculous 55 attempts. He threw three interceptions and fumbled once and had a pretty pathetic 5.9 YPA after all was said and done. The Jags are not a bad pass defense and this was his first start, so maybe some forgiveness is needed here - but it was bad.
So Minshew checked it down a ton, but we probably won’t see another 50+ pass attempt day for the Colts offense. That RB usage is one of the more interesting things to watch for the rest of the year. The thought was that Taylor would slowly take over the lion’s share of the work, but it was split pretty much 50/50 yesterday - slightly in favor of Moss still.
Jaguars
Convincing win for the Jaguars, but they were benefitted hugely by those four Minshew turnovers. On offense they had a bad 4.0 yards per play and Lawrence went for only 181 yards on 30 attempts (6.03 YPA).
Etienne: 18-55-2 rushing, 3-28-0 recieving
^ His talent and usage makes him probably a top five RB going foreward.
Even split again, and that’s without Zay Jones even playing. Lots of mouths to feed there. Kirk and Strange had the touchdowns in this case, but it’s going to be tough to get a consistent fantasy scorer out of this group.
Jonathan Taylor (IND), 1 GL Carries, 50.0 GL Carry%
Zack Moss (IND), 1 GL Carries, 50.0 GL Carry%
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