R.C. Fischer discusses Six Fantasy Football Things We Learned From Week 5.

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After each week of preseason games, I’ll be discussing things that stood out to me — things I believe the football media is shaping the wrong way or has totally overlooked. Here’s my take after watching all the this week’s contests…

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6) Brock Osweiler ruins everything…

Since opening day (Weeks 2–5), Osweiler has completed 56.9% of his passes with 4 passing TDs and 6 interceptions, every week he looks worse than the next. In an era where middle-of-the-draft QB selections are walking into games cold and handling themselves fine, the $72M quarterback is regressing rapidly. In his last 11 games, going back to last season, Osweiler has thrown 13 TD passes and coughed up 12 picks. Under 260 yards passing in five of his last six games.

DeAndre Hopkins is suffering the most – a fortunate, garbage time TD this week spared him a third disaster week in a row for fantasy. Hopkins has 56 yards or less in four of five games this year with Osweiler. Lamar Miller isn’t all that great a running back, but Osweiler’s pass game isn’t helping him either.

Osweiler better ‘get right’ next week vs. Indy, because he has Denver after that in Week 7.

5) Welcome Back, Cordarrelle Patterson…

Back-to-back games with 6 targets for Patterson, and he had a TD catch as well this week – his first receiving TD in his last 29 games. He has 12 targets the past two weeks, and that matches the same number of targets he’s had in his prior 25 games combined.

Patterson has worked his butt off to get out of the Mike Zimmer doghouse. He’s become a special teams menace, on returns and as a tackler. He’s going to matter for fantasy ahead. Hard to believe he was a first-round draft pick in 2013, and was once compared to Randy Moss his rookie season…it looks like he’s getting a chance at redemption.

4) The Raiders ‘miss’ Latavius Murray…

Hope you enjoyed your fantasy that DeAndre Washington was taking over the main carry for Oakland. The slow, ‘unshifty’ Washington racked up 2.6 yards per carry as a ‘starter’ this week…and generally looked poor as a runner, as he has all season and preseason – as flopped this week as we predicted here last week. Jalen Richard fared a bit better with 3.9 yards per carry on 8 carries. Neither guy looked ready to be a workhorse running back…because neither has the skill set for it. They are nice ‘relief’ RBs only. The Raiders tried to run the clock down running the ball late with this ‘duo’ on their final two drives, and could not make anything happen – fortunately San Diego botched their late FG, or the story of the inability to run the ball with these two guys (Washington and Richard) would be more prevalent. The Raiders miss Murray; they need Murray.

As soon as Latavius is ready, he returns right back to the starting role and main-carry duty – which, on Oakland, only means 10–12 carries per game.

3) Aaron Rodgers keeps getting worse (for fantasy), and no one cares…

If you watched the entire game last night, you saw what I’ve been barking about since Week 1 – Aaron Rodgers is no longer an elite fantasy or NFL quarterback. Against a so-so Giants’ pass defense with all the time in the world to throw, Rodgers was picked twice, should’ve been picked 4-5 times, and completed 51.1% of his passes.

Watching Rodgers sail passes over open receivers’ heads and throwing ground balls to James Starks on simple screen passes last night made me wonder why the football media loves and Aaron Rodgers, and hates Andy Dalton with a passion? A comparison of their last 11 regular-season games…

57.2% Comp. Pct., 220.6 yards passing, 1.7 TD/0.7 INT per game, ZERO 300+ yard passing games and one 3+ TD pass games = Aaron Rodgers

66.0% Comp. Pct., 266.7 yards passing, 1.5 TD/0.6 INT per game, three 300+ yard passing games and two 3+ TD pass games = Andy Dalton

This Giants game marked the 11th game in a row (13 if you include the playoffs) where Rodgers has not thrown for 300+ yards in a game. The 259 yards passing in this game was his season high! He’s thrown for 220 or fewer yards in a game in eight of his last 11 regular season games. Yet, he’ll be on autopilot ranked as a top 3 QB option universally for fantasy next week, I’m sure.

2) Memo to self: Don’t worry about life-threatening issues to players for fantasy…

All week I was sure Tevin Coleman would be either inactive or on a very limited snap count, and I rated him low and advised benching him because of the sickle cell issue with the Denver altitude. Instead, he was their best ‘wide receiver’ out of the backfield and ripped up the Denver defense with 132 yards receiving and a TD. What Coleman has done as a receiver for Atlanta this year is jaw dropping. I’ll not make the mistake of benching him again.

1) Never bench your studs, except…

There was some debate last week as to whether you should bench Julio Jones against the vaunted Denver defense. The discussions I saw on fantasy TV Sunday morning was quickly dismissed as ‘play your studs’. I get it…but it was the wrong advice in this instance.

I was open to benching Julio, but I also understood the complexity and emotion of doing so. One of the tipping points as to why I was leaning towards a possible Week 5 ‘sit’ in ‘two WR’ leagues with no flex – Julio hasn’t been that great this season, for fantasy.

We all know he had the monster 300-yard game in Week 4. Ignore that for a second, and here are his numbers in his other four games this season: 8.4 fantasy PPG (11.4 PPR) on 3.0 catches (8.5 targets), 54.3 yards, 0.50 TDs per game – a 16-game pace of 48 catches for 868 yards and 8 TDs.

Julio’s produced somewhere between ‘bad’ and ‘OK’ in four of his five fantasy games this season…and he is likely to get Richard Sherman next week. I know Julio is a talent, but he’s been mediocre in four games, and out of this world in the other. Which one is the real Julio for 2016? He might not deserve to be a top 10 rated fantasy WR this week.

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