This column is debuting after Week 2 because I spent the aftermath of Week 1 on vacation in the land of the Vikings, Denmark and Sweden. If there’s one thing I learned about vikings while at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark, it’s that they were master ship builders. But if there’s a second thing I learned about them, it’s that they were tough. These were fierce warriors who braved hostile climates and traveled thousands of miles across heavy seas in search of honor and glory (and loot).
The last thing any self-respecting viking needs is a helping hand to win (or draw) a battle. But that’s exactly what happened to the Minnesota Vikings, who needed a highly questionable roughing the passer penalty to salvage a 29-29 tie with the Green Bay Packers. You can hardly blame Kirk Cousins for taking advantage of the situation with his late-game heroics, but Leif Eriksson would surely be rolling in his grave to know the referees bailed the Vikings out.
Viking shame aside, here are 10 things we learned in Week 2.
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Patrick Mahomes has league-winning upside
We knew that Mahomes had the arm strength. We knew he had the mobility. We knew he had the offensive weapons and coaching scheme. But we hadn’t yet seen him perform at a high level against NFL defenders. And remember those pesky preseason reports about him throwing interceptions? Boy, do those seem silly now.
I was higher on Mahomes than most, but even I felt more comfortable drafting him as an upside second QB rather than my starter in 10- and 12-team leagues. Overall, Mahomes was the 16th quarterback off the board in fantasy drafts, typically lasting until the double-digit rounds in 12-team leagues. Two games and 10 touchdown passes later, he’s looking like a legitimate league-winning pick. Mahomes is quickly becoming the Deshaun Watson of 2018, and if he’s able to keep it up all season he has a realistic shot to finish as a top five QB — or dare I say it, even number one.
It’s time to buy into the 2018 edition of Fitzmagic
While Mahomes was being drafted as a QB2, Ryan Fitzpatrick wasn’t even drafted in most single-QB leagues. It’s not hard to see why. He threw just three total touchdowns over his three starts for the Bucs last November, and presumed starter Jameis Winston was waiting in the wings once his three-game suspension came to an end.
But we have seen the Fitzmagic before. We saw it when he threw for 290 yards and three scores in relief of Winston last October, and we saw it for an entire season in 2015, when Fitzpatrick threw for over 3,900 yards and 31 TDs for the Jets, finishing as a top-10 fantasy QB.
With at least 400 yards passing and four TDs in both games so far this season, the Fitzmagic is in full effect right now, and the stars are aligning for it to continue for the foreseeable future. The Bucs have three explosive wide receivers, an up-and-coming tight end, and the lack of a consistent running game or defense suggests Fitzpatrick will continue to go to the air early and often.
Fitzpatrick’s post-game press conference attire was not the outfit of someone anxiously looking over his shoulder and expecting to lose the starting job. The QB position remains very deep, but Fitzpatrick is worth adding in all leagues and worth starting if you’re not loving the production you’re getting from the QB you drafted.
The Cardinals’ offense is bad, and it’s dragging down DJ
David Johnson was the third player selected in 2018 fantasy drafts, but he’s managed just 22 carries for 85 yards and one score through the Cardinals’ first two games. But the most perplexing part of all is that Johnson, who caught 120 balls for 879 yards in his last full NFL season, has caught only six passes for 33 yards this year — including a measly one catch for three yards on Sunday.
Arizona did not project to be an elite offense coming into the season, but few imagined it would be quite this atrocious. The Sam Bradford-led Cardinals have produced a grand total of six points through eight quarters of play, prompting early-but-completely-logical calls for head coach Steven Wilks to hand the offense over to rookie Josh Rosen.
No matter what the Cardinals do at QB, the first order of business is to figure out how to get the ball into the hands of the team’s best playmaker. The thinking in drafting Johnson was that he was good enough to produce at a high level even if the Cardinals’ offense was subpar. That rationale still holds, so it wouldn’t be wise to sell DJ now for pennies on the dollar. But unless Rosen takes over and is able to quickly turn around this putrid offense, we’ll have no choice but to lower our season-long expectations for DJ.
It’s time for Royce Freeman owners to worry
If you play in a 12-team league and own Freeman, you probably took him in the third or fourth round of your draft. It’s only been two weeks, but it’s already looking like Freeman may struggle to provide a return on that investment.
The urge to reach for Freeman in drafts was understandable. He looked great in the preseason and it appeared that the perennially-disappointing Devontae Booker was the only thing standing in the way of Freeman having a workhorse role. But it turns out that the true obstacle for Freeman isn’t Booker, it’s undrafted free agent Phillip Lindsay, who has out-touched Freeman 32-to-23 through the first two games — and out-gained him by over 100 yards.
At 5’8” and 190 pounds, Lindsay isn’t about to become a workhorse himself, so this is very much a committee. But right now Lindsay is the slightly better bet for carries and the more likely back to accumulate receiving stats. Barring an injury to Lindsay, Freeman’s best path to fantasy value may be to become the team’s designated goal-line back, but even that isn’t guaranteed based on their red zone usage so far. As it stands, both backs are reasonable flex options, but it’s Lindsay who is closer to locking down the every-week RB2 status you’d expect out of a third- or fourth-round fantasy pick.
Matt Breida is making a case for more touches
I was a big Jerick McKinnon cheerleader this preseason, but his torn ACL robbed us of the chance to see what he could do as the lead back in San Francisco. Many of my arguments for McKinnon were less about his own abilities than they were about his favorable situation in Kyle Shanahan’s potent offense. And for one week at least, it was Breida who realized the fantasy production that I had envisioned for McKinnon.
McKinnon was never likely to be a true bell-cow back, and at 5’11”/190 lbs., Breida isn’t either. Alfred Morris is going to maintain a between-the-tackles and goal-line role that should keep him relevant in fantasy leagues as an RB3/flex option at the very least. But it’s Breida who has the big-play ability that he showed in his 66-yard touchdown scamper against the Lions on Sunday. Breida finished with 11 carries for 138 rushing yards, the most of any RB in Sunday’s Week 2 slate.
For now, Breida should be viewed as a high-upside RB3/flex option who is best utilized in matchups like his Week 3 tilt with Kansas City that project to be high scoring. But if Breida continues to produce, it will be interesting to see if the 49ers gradually give him the few extra weekly touches he’ll need to get into the RB2 conversation.
The Watson-to-Fuller connection is back
In the four games he played with Deshaun Watson last season, Will Fuller piled up an unfathomable seven touchdown catches. Fuller only topped 62 receiving yards in one of those contests, however, and following Watson’s season-ending injury, Fuller did next-to-nothing over the rest of the season with Houston’s backup QBs. Those factors led fantasy drafters to be cautiously optimistic on Fuller this preseason, taking him in the seventh round on average in 12-team leagues.
Fuller missed Week 1 with a hamstring injury, but he and Watson picked up right where they left off in Week 2, as Fuller hauled in eight of his nine targets for 113 yards and a score. Some touchdown regression is inevitable for Fuller, and DeAndre Hopkins remains the obvious alpha dog in this offense, so Fuller’s yardage totals may be inconsistent on a week-to-week basis. But Fuller’s clear chemistry with Watson gives him enough upside to be back on the WR2 radar.
You don’t need to be in a PPR league to start Chris Thompson
As someone who prefers playing in leagues that don’t award points per reception, I’ve traditionally gravitated towards RBs who are between-the-tackles grinders rather than pass-catching specialists. But as the league has evolved, so has my mindset. Look no further than Alvin Kamara, who proved last season that an RB1 can gain more yardage through the air than on the ground. This year, that player could be Christian McCaffrey. Melvin Gordon and Saquon Barkley are other RB1s who will accumulate a disproportionate amount of their fantasy production in the receiving game.
Then there are players like Chris Thompson, who I would have traditionally looked at as a PPR-only flex option. No longer. Thompson was performing as a top-10 RB in non-PPR formats last season when he broke his leg in Week 11. This year, he has 19 catches for 155 yards and a TD through his first two games, not entirely dissimilar numbers to elite WRs like Antonio Brown, A.J. Green, Odell Beckham, and Keenan Allen. He’s also chipped in 66 yards on the ground, but that’s just the icing on the cake.
I’m not saying that Thompson will be as value as the top wide receivers, but there is no doubt that he belongs in just about all fantasy lineups — whether or not your league awards points per reception.
Amari Cooper still belongs in fantasy lineups
I didn’t consider myself to be the biggest Cooper booster coming into the season, but I was a bit surprised by how many people jumped off the bandwagon after one bad game. Cooper has always been a maddeningly inconsistent fantasy option and he probably always will be. But the fact remains that with Michael Crabtree out of the picture, Jordy Nelson on his last legs, and Martavis Bryant in trouble again, Cooper is set up to see the highest target volume of his career in 2018.
Derek Carr is hardly an elite quarterback, but he shouldn’t have much trouble getting the ball to his best playmaker. In Week 2, that translated into 10 catches for 116 yards for Cooper. The next clunker is never too far away, but Cooper is still an every-week WR2.
The Lions, Bucs, and Rams are supporting three viable fantasy WRs
In the past, only the teams with the most elite QBs could support three wide receivers who merited starting consideration in standard-sized fantasy leagues. But increasingly, the more important factor is how each team distributes its targets. Yes, the Lions, Buccaneers, and Rams are all looking like above-average passing teams, but they are also teams that rarely make use of the tight end in the passing game, boosting the fortunes of the receiver corps.
The Rams showed how it could be done last season, when Cooper Kupp, Robert Woods, and Sammy Watkins all had WR3/flex value, even in non-PPR formats. This year LA has upgraded Watkins with Brandin Cooks, but the recipe for the passing game looks to be the same. The Lions and Bucs are also feeding the ball to three different receivers so far this season, meaning it could be time to reevaluate Kenny Golladay and Chris Godwin, talented young wideouts who initially looked like they might need to move up the depth chart in order to have consistent fantasy value.
Josh Gordon’s fantasy value is completely up in the air…again
In the preseason, I predicted that Gordon would fall short of his consensus projection of 975.5 receiving yards this season. That prediction becomes more likely with each game Gordon misses, but this is still a player who could produce 975 yards in little more than half a season if he can rediscover his 2013 self.
Gordon has a very team-friendly contract, so it appears that the Browns will trade him rather than release him. If he lands in the right spot, he could make a major impact, but receivers often struggle to get acclimated to new teams when the move happens mid-season. Gordon owners need to hold on to him while we wait to see what transpires, but even if he lands in an ideal situation he probably won’t be worth starting in fantasy leagues for at least another couple weeks. He’ll need to start all over in terms of learning the offense and developing chemistry with his new QB — and must still prove that he can stay focused and remain on the field.
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Andrew Seifter is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Andrew, check out his archive and follow him @andrew_seifter.