Hello and welcome to the Week 7 edition of Hoppen to Conclusions! This is where I, Sam Hoppen, will share some of my favorite charts, which are designed to give you an overview of the NFL landscape. These charts, along with the commentary that I provide, aim to help you make start or sit, DFS lineup construction, betting picks, or any other fantasy football decisions. There can be a lot of noise in fantasy football analysis, but these charts have been carefully selected to give you some of the most relevant and useful decision points.
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Fantasy Football Trends & Takeaways
Tight End Usage
- This year has been the year of the rookie tight end, and Michael Mayer is finally joining the party. In Week 6, Mayer set season-high marks in routes run percent (67%), targets (6), and receiving yards (75). To this point, Las Vegas had been the most concentrated passing attack in the league, but Mayer’s increased role could change that. Fortunately, it seems like Mayer’s increased usage has come with Austin Hooper‘s role minimizing, with him running a route on fewer than 35% of the team’s dropbacks in each of the last two games after being above 50% in every game prior. This role reversal, as opposed to a fluke outing, has me more bullish on Mayer’s near-term and rest-of-season outlook.
- Action: add Michael Mayer
- Last week, Jerry Jones noted that he liked seeing the ball go to tight ends. So, naturally, Jake Ferguson had his worst game of the season in Week 6, recording just one catch for 15 yards on a single target. But, I’m still optimistic about Ferguson for reasons that don’t appear in the box score. First, Ferguson’s routes run rate has risen in every game since Week 2, culminating with a season-high 84% rate in Week 6. Additionally, we’ve seen Dallas’ PROE rise over their past several games after they started off the season with a run-heavy approach. Finally, Ferguson’s first-read rate of 16.8% is 12th among tight ends (via FantasyPoints). The bar is low for tight end this year, but I think Ferguson holds enough value on a solid offense to warrant a slightly longer leash for now.
- Action: hold Jake Ferguson
Quick Hops
- As expected, Jonathan Taylor‘s involvement in the Colts offense did increase slightly in his second week back. He played on 42% of the team’s snaps and ran a route on 37% of the team’s dropbacks. Still, it remains a timeshare with Zack Moss from a workload perspective as they split the touch share evenly in Week 6. The six targets that Taylor earned (which turned into seven HVTs) are encouraging, but I might struggle to start him against this Browns defense in Week 7 while he’s still in a committee.
- Gus Edwards got all three of the Ravens’ green zone touches in Week 6. Justice Hill still got three HVTs thanks to his three receptions, but was out-snapped by Edwards in the game. This could be a very game-script-dependent backfield in which Edwards is favored when Baltimore is leading and Hill is favored when they’re trailing.
- Quentin Johnston is still struggling to find playing time despite the injury to Mike Williams. Johnston went from running a route on 71% of dropbacks in the first game without Williams to just a 49% rate on Monday Night Football. He has earned just 13 targets all season across the five games Los Angeles has played. If you can be patient I still think he’s worth a hold, but the expectations on near-term production are very, very low.
- Jameson Williams also took a step back in terms of routes run, going from 50% in his first game back to just 19% in Week 6. He does have three targets in each of his first two games, including this long reception for a touchdown. That said, I think Williams’ ceiling is at about six targets per game with plenty of boom-or-bust potential given the type of player he is and the Lions’ low PROE.
- Trey McBride ran a route on a season-high 48% of Arizona’s dropbacks while Zach Ertz was at a season-low 52% routes run rate. McBride also earned five total targets, so this situation is something to monitor if McBride starts to get more run than the old veteran.
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