3:02 pm | October 14, 2018 | Go to Source | Author:
As we do each week, we recap the week’s winners and losers from a fantasy perspective, complete with applicable game and historical data. Check back after the conclusion of the 1 and 4 p.m. ET (and, when applicable, Sunday Night Football) games for our picks of the week’s best and worst.
Winners
Adam Thielen, WR, Minnesota Vikings: His 29.3 PPR fantasy points on Sunday helped him extend his position lead in the category with 153.2 for the season — and that’s the third-most by any wide receiver through his first six team games this century, trailing only Wes Welker’s 167.4 (2011) and DeAndre Hopkins’ 156.6 (2015). What’s more, Thielen reached 100 receiving yards for the sixth consecutive game, joining Charley Hennigan (1961) as the only players in history to do that; Hennigan’s streak extended to seven games before it ended. Thielen caught 11 passes to push his total to 58 for the season, which, per the Elias Sports Bureau, is the most by any player through six team games in NFL history. Thielen’s season is off to an extraordinary start, and he has a trio of favorable matchups ahead before his bye in Week 10: @NYJ (Week 7), NO (Week 8), DET (Week 9).
Melvin Gordon, RB, Los Angeles Chargers: The top scorer from Sunday’s 1 p.m. ET games, Gordon’s 35.0 PPR fantasy points gave him a new season high. In fact, that’s the fourth-most points he has had in a single week in his 49-game NFL career. That also gave him at least a temporary lead over Todd Gurley II (139.5), who is playing during the 4 p.m. ET block, as the top scorer at the position with 162.5 points. Gordon has now improved his point total by a substantial margin through six team games in each of his four NFL seasons; after scoring 45.5 using PPR scoring (32.5 in non-PPR) through six games in 2015, Gordon had 103.5 (and 89.5) in 2016, 127.8 (and 99.8) in 2017 and now 162.5 (and 132.5) in 2018.
James Conner, RB, Pittsburgh Steelers: His 28.9 PPR fantasy points on Sunday ranked second-best among running backs from the 1 p.m. ET games, and they represented the third time in his six games this season in which he has scored at least 25 points. Conner now has 141 PPR fantasy points for the season, which practically guarantees he’ll remain among the top five scorers at the position by week’s end — and it should make for an awfully interesting next 14 days now that the Steelers enter their bye week. Will Le’Veon Bell rejoin the team during that time period, and if so, will Bell be handed his starting job back? Or could the Steelers potentially trade Bell? To put Conner’s fill-in performance into perspective, consider that Bell had just 124.6 PPR fantasy points through six team games in 2017, and he never had more than 138.3 points through the first six games played in any of his first five NFL seasons.
Austin Hooper, TE, Atlanta Falcons: For the second consecutive week, Hooper drew at least 10 targets, and for the second consecutive week he scored more than 15 PPR fantasy points; Hooper’s 22.1 points on Sunday represents the position’s most from the 1 p.m. ET games. That’s also a new personal best for him, exceeding his 20.8 from Week 1 in 2017, and hints that the breakthrough we have long anticipated might finally be here. Of course, it’s also worth pointing out that, for the second consecutive week, he faced an extremely favorable matchup, so it’s possible that tougher defenses will hold him more quiet. Hooper was, however, started in 36.7 percent of ESPN leagues in Week 6 — 11th-highest among tight ends — and he certainly warrants more attention than that.
Mitchell Trubisky, QB, Chicago Bears: He scored 27.3 fantasy points in a tough-luck overtime loss to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, meaning that in consecutive games he has scored at least that many points. Trubisky has broken through in a big way in those contests, and the near-repeat performance from a fantasy perspective should help build confidence among his managers. He now has at least three passing touchdowns in each of his past two games, after having never passed for that many TDs in any of his first 15 career NFL starts (and having passed for as many as two TDs only once, in Week 2). He was started in just 11.7 percent of ESPN leagues, 19th-highest among quarterbacks, but that was still a career high for Trubisky — and he should see that number increase significantly in Week 7 in a game in which he should be throwing early and often against the New England Patriots.
Jameis Winston, QB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers: In a matchups-driven performance most everyone seemed to see coming — he was the No. 8 quarterback in the weekly ESPN rankings and was almost universally ranked a top-10 quarterback, regardless of your source — Winston scored 30.9 fantasy points against the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday, his best single-game performance in 47 career games. His performance was somewhat erratic, as it often is — he was intercepted twice — but as has often been the case in his career, he put up a good fantasy point total in the end. Winston’s 43 percent start rate in ESPN leagues was his highest since Week 9 in 2017.
Albert Wilson, WR, Dolphins: Where did that come from? Wilson scored a career-best 33 PPR fantasy points on nine targets against a good Bears defense on Sunday (and it wasn’t driven entirely by the game going into overtime, as he added only one catch for 1 yard during the extra period). While he has been a serviceable wide receiver all season, with healthy target totals of six, six and nine in his past three games, Wilson’s involvement and his quarterback are simply not good enough to propel his weekly fantasy point totals into this tier most weeks. He was started on just 0.68 percent of ESPN Fantasy teams and rostered in 5.99 percent of ESPN leagues at the time of the game’s kickoff. While those will both surely rise entering Week 7, they shouldn’t by a substantial amount.
Jason Myers, K, New York Jets: It’s rare that a place-kicker winds up one of the week’s fantasy highlights, but then, it’s rare for a place-kicker to score as many as the 27 fantasy points that Myers had on Sunday. That’s tied for the third-best individual score by the position since 1950, trailing only Rob Bironas’ 29 in 2007 (Week 7) and Jay Feely’s 28.5 in 2010 (Week 14), while matching Cairo Santos’ total from 2015 (Week 4) and Greg Zuerlein’s from 2017 (Week 4). Remarkably, Myers accomplished it without a single field goal conversion of 50 yards or greater, which is what grants the maximum number of bonus points using ESPN’s standard scoring (five points, or two more than the usual three for a shorter field goal), though his 7-for-7 performance on field goals makes him only the seventh placekicker since 1950 to be perfect on seven or more such attempts. Unfortunately, few in fantasy reaped the benefits, as Myers was started in just 0.75 percent of ESPN leagues in Week 6.
David Njoku, TE, Cleveland Browns: His usage appears to be ramping up over the past two weeks, and Njoku’s position-high (among the 1 p.m. ET games) 12 targets helped him to an 18.5 PPR fantasy point total on Sunday, setting a new personal best. It marked the second consecutive week that he was targeted at least 10 times — he saw 10 targets in Week 5, trailing only Jarvis Landry’s 11 on the team — and represents the kind of usage he’ll need in order to secure weekly TE1 status going forward. Njoku, who was started in 38.3 percent of ESPN leagues in Week 6 (10th-highest among tight ends), now gets three consecutive outstanding matchups in Weeks 7-9: @TB, @PIT, KC.
Saquon Barkley, RB, New York Giants: Though his production hasn’t resulted in much success for the Giants on the gridiron — they’ve lost five of their six games, have allowed the eighth-most points per game and have scored only 11 touchdowns on offense (six of them by Barkley) — Barkley’s performance thus far has been nothing short of phenomenal. On Thursday Night Football, he scored a career-best 37.9 PPR fantasy points, his best performance through six career NFL games, and he extended his record to six games in a row with at least 20 points to begin his career. Totaling those performances, Barkley has 157.1 PPR fantasy points, which is the second-most by any player at any position since at least 1950 (the earliest season for which we have verified data) through six career games. He’s already more than halfway to the 300-point plateau for the season, which has been reached by only 15 rookies in NFL history, and Barkley is on pace for 418.9 points, which would easily shatter Eric Dickerson’s rookie record of 392.2 (1983) and be the seventh-largest total by any player at any stage of a career.
Losers
Deshaun Watson, QB, Houston Texans: He was bound to have a disappointing game at some point, having averaged 24.9 fantasy points in his first 11 career NFL starts and 22.2 in five games so far this season. But few could’ve seen Watson scoring just 5.3 points against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday — even with Tre’Davious White active for the Bills to potentially cause headaches for Watson’s top target, DeAndre Hopkins. For Watson, it was his worst single-game score in his 13 career appearances, including his 2017 Week 1 relief appearance (5.7 points in that one), and it let down his managers who started him in 64.8 percent of ESPN leagues (seventh-highest among quarterbacks). Worse yet, he draws a tough-as-nails matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 7, minimizing his chances of a quick rebound.
Jared Cook, TE, Oakland Raiders: The No. 4-scoring tight end entering Week 6, Cook managed just 3 PPR fantasy points on his two targets in a miserable performance by the Raiders at Wembley Stadium in London, England. It was his second consecutive score of six points or fewer, which is of particular note because his team now gets its bye week and the tight end position as a whole seems to be on the mend with Greg Olsen returning to action and Evan Engram not far behind. Cook, who was started in 70.8 percent of ESPN leagues in Week 6 (sixth-most among tight ends), will probably be only a borderline TE2 once the Raiders return from bye to face the while Indianapolis Colts in Week 8.
Jordan Howard, RB, Bears: That’s two extremely disappointing fantasy performances in a row for Howard, as he scored just 4.9 PPR fantasy points on 14 rushing attempts on Sunday. Even worse, fellow Bears running back Tarik Cohen scored 23.1 points on five rushing attempts and seven receptions of his own, which makes it seem that Cohen’s start percentage in ESPN leagues (38.6) should look more like Howard’s (71.3, 15th-highest among running backs) in future weeks, and vice versa. The Bears do seem committed to Howard on first and second downs, but not necessarily that often in scoring position, and they’re moving noticeably away from him on passing downs. Both factors diminish Howard’s value, and game flow could therefore cause problems for him in Week 7 against the Patriots.
Carlos Hyde, RB, Browns: The league’s No. 2 player in terms of rushing attempts entering the week (100), Hyde showed on Sunday that he’s more of a volume-driven fantasy option as his 3.4 PPR fantasy points on 14 carries was a matchups-driven disappointment. It was the second consecutive week that he was held without a touchdown and fewer than 10 points, and Hyde averaged 3.1 yards per carry in those games combined. Hyde was started in 77.2 percent of ESPN leagues, 13th-highest among running backs, in Week 6. He should, however, find more running room against the Buccaneers in Week 7.
Will Fuller V, WR, Texans: Considering the aforementioned Tre’Davious White was active for the Bills on Sunday, one might’ve thought Fuller had a better matchup among the Texans wide receivers, but his 5.3 PPR fantasy points on three targets represented the second consecutive week in which Fuller has been held quiet. As mentioned last week, Weeks 5 and 6 are now the only games in Fuller’s nine career starts with Watson as the Texans’ starting quarterback in which the wide receiver has failed to catch a touchdown pass. That might unfortunately extend to three in a row, as the Texans face the stingy Jaguars defense in Week 7.
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