The Broncos don’t care where you drafted Royce Freeman in your draft.
You can tell yourself Freeman is the lead back for the Broncos all you want, but the Broncos certainly don’t believe it. The Broncos believe their lead back is undrafted free agent Phillip Lindsay. He didn’t need an injury to make it happen either. The fantasy community just totally whiffed on noticing his usage during the preseason. Lindsay had 14 carries and one reception compared to Freeman’s eight carries. Freeman got the goal line touchdown, but he may be dependent on those for the rest of the season if Lindsay usage continues in this trend. A stout Baltimore defense in Week 3 is going make for a tough matchup for Freeman who isn’t used in the passing game much.
Frank Gore played 40% of snaps in Week 2.
Coming into the year many people expected there to be some kind of a timeshare between Gore and Kenyan Drake. It looks like Gore is going to be a part of this offense regardless of how much better of a back Drake is. Gore saw an uptick in snaps of 11% and getting closer to that 50/50 split Drake owners fear. Drake will still be valued in fantasy, but his ceiling will be capped locking him into an RB2 role. The Dolphins are also winning right now which will further drive them to continue to use both backs until it leads to losses. You can start Drake every week, but know he may be a bit of a boom-bust play.
Marvin Jones Leads the NFL with six end zone targets.
Coming into the year the Lions looked like they had one of the best WR groups with Jones, Golden Tate, and Kenny Golladay. Tate leads the team in targets with 29 as expected. Golladay is barely ahead of Jones with 20 compared Jones’ 19. The key difference is the value of those targets. Jones is getting the opportunity to put touchdowns on the board and likely will sooner rather than later. He has more than double the red zone targets than any other WR on the Lions and is top 10 in the league. Week 3 the Lions get a high scoring matchup with the Patriots who just gave up three touchdowns to Jacksonville wide receivers.
The Colts backfield is a full-blown committee behind a terrible offensive line.
Marlon Mack returned to the field this week for the Colts joining Jordan Wilkins and Nyheim Hines in the backfield. Hines led in snaps, but only had four carries and one target. Wilkins followed Hines in snaps with 23 and Mack played 18 snaps. Both Mack and Wilkins had 10 carries and two targets. Wilkins was the best runner of the group turning his 10 carries into 61 yards, but the backfield provides little fantasy value. If I had to pick one to own it would be Hines in a PPR league hoping he develops into a solid pass-catching back, but you really need an injury for this backfield to clear up. The Colts bad offensive line faces off against the best run defense in the NFL in the Eagles in Week 3.
Case Keenum has a 93% completion rate and 15.5 yards-per-attempt when throwing to Emmanuel Sanders.
Sanders was seen as a value in fantasy drafts all summer being drafted behind teammate Demaryius Thomas. We knew Keenum loves to target the slot and Sanders is running more than 70% of his routes from the slot thanks to Courtland Sutton playing on the outside. When targeting Thomas Keenum has a 52% completion rate and only 3.8 yards-per-attempt. Sanders also avoids opposing defense’s top cornerbacks by playing in the slot. In Week 3 the Broncos play the Ravens tough defense, but he will be matched up on Tavon Young. Young gave up six receptions for 80 yards and two touchdowns from the slot during Week 2 against Cincinnati. Start Sanders with confidence.
The Cardinals have run the third-fewest offensive plays in Weeks 1 & 2 since the merger in 1970.
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Mike McCoy has no idea how to utilize his offensive weapons. Sam Bradford should not be a starting quarterback in the league anymore. These are the two primary reasons fantasy owners should be worried about David Johnson and Larry Fitzgerald. Johnson, in particular, carried a hefty draft price and is quickly looking like 2016 Todd Gurley under Jeff Fisher. Johnson. Johnson is being used as a regular smash and pound RB instead of the dynamic receiving back Bruce Arians used him as in 2016. He has only run 11% of his routes from a WR position instead of 43% in 2016. Owners are forced to keep rolling Johnson out there hoping for better days.
Allen Robinson is getting the slot WR treatment just like many other WR fantasy gems.
Last week I talked about how Michael Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders were benefiting from running more of their routes out of the slot. This week, we saw Robinson do the same. He saw 14 targets resulting in ten receptions for 83 yards and was Mitchell Trubisky’s favorite target. The Bears offense seems designed to get the ball out of Trubisky’s hand quickly to his first read which is often Robinson in the slot. In Week 3 the Bears play the Cardinals. Even if Patrick Peterson follows him into the slot Trubisky likely won’t go away from his number one guy.
Quincy Enunwa is top four in target percentage from the slot.
Enunwa came out as Sam Darnold favorite target in Week 1 and that did not stop in Week 2 even with Jermaine Kearse returning to the field. Enunwa has been targeted on a third of Darnold’s passes and has run 43 routes from the slot. The only wide receivers that have more targets from the slot are Corey Davis, Julio Jones, and Michael Thomas. That is some good company to be in. Enunwa is quickly becoming an every week starter with the Jets regularly playing catchup this season.
Tyler Boyd’s third-year breakout is overshadowing John Ross’ second-year breakout.
When Brandon LaFell was released this offseason many thought that signified the Bengals were ready to turn to Ross who was their first-round pick from a year ago. Ross has only six targets on the year. However, Boyd has 14 targets on the year which is only three behind star teammate A.J. Green. The Bengals also have lost running back Joe Mixon for a few weeks thrusting Giovani Bernard into a starting role. WIth Bernard being used as more of a runner, the Bengals will likely throw more to their WRs to preserve Bernard as their primary back. The Bengals also have a top-three schedule for WRs for the remainder of the season. Their next six games include the Falcons, Dolphins, Steelers, Chiefs, Buccaneers, and Saints.
The Falcons just gave up 14 receptions to Christian McCaffrey.
Why is this important? If Chrisitan McCaffrey isn’t the best pass-catching back in the NFL, Alvin Kamara is and he takes on the Falcons in Week 3. Last week we noted that the Falcons lost two of their best defensive players who were primarily responsible for covering backs out of the backfield. Kamara should give the Falcons defense nightmares and they will be a matchup to target all year for pass-catching running backs.
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