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It's playoff time! The NFL bye weeks are over and we have just four weeks left on the schedule, which means it is go-time for fantasy football. Time to put all your chips on the table.
Just because we're in the playoffs doesn't mean it is time to stop looking backward. Week 14 was another great one for fantasy football, with all kinds of injury and COVID-related news that changed the slate quite a bit. It seemed like things went more according to plan this week, which is always nice to see.
Let's go ahead and take one more look at Week 14 before turning out aim to Week 15, here's the Week 14 fantasy football data dump.
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Situational Data
The Cowboys ran out 83 plays against Washington, firmly dominating that game from start to finish. Their defense dominated in a way that made it tougher for their offensive players to post big numbers. It was very interesting to see the 63% pass rate despite dominating the game. It seems they have really changed their approach now with Tony Pollard and Ezekiel Elliott not 100%. That should mean good things for Dak Prescott and company as we finish out the year.
With Taysom Hill under center, the Saints are going to run the ball a ton. They ran up a 59% rush rate with that number going to 71% in neutral situations. They didn't exactly manhandle the Jets, but they did enough to get the job done, and Hill and Kamara are elite fantasy plays moving forward. On the other side were the Jaguars, who threw the ball at an 84% clip as they tried unsuccessfully for 60 minutes to score a point. Even despite the high pass rates and high rates of deep passes, Jaguars' plays have largely come up empty-handed in terms of fantasy points.
The Seahawks posted the highest deep pass rate of the year for any team this week, as Russell Wilson threw 28% of his passes more than 25 yards downfield. It was quite successful this week as well, as Russ and Tyler Lockett both posted strong fantasy days. The most conservative passing attacks appear to be the Cowboys, Saints, and Titans - all three of those teams did not attempt a single deep pass. Let's check out the snaps data.
With Browns' tight ends on the shelf, Austin Hooper stepped into a 100% snap rate and posted a nice fantasy day because of it (although most of that came on a one-yard touchdown). Sony Michel also took a 100% snap role, which is very rare for a running back. That was the result of Darrell Henderson being inactive, but it would not be surprising to see Michel being the guy for the Rams to finish out the year. Foster Moreau played a ton in the wake of Darren Waller, but again failed to post a useable fantasy day.
Robby Anderson is another surprising name at the top of the list, as he had his best day of the year, catching a touchdown from PJ Walker. Check out the rest of the data and utilize that search box to find more insights!
Quarterbacks Data for Fantasy Football
The Chiefs' defense made things easy for Patrick Mahomes, who racked up a beautiful 10.8 yards per attempt, only needing 24 attempts to post a strong fantasy day of his own. Joe Burrow, Matthew Stafford, Aaron Rodgers, and Russell Wilson all eclipsed nine yards per attempt. The worst of the week was, unsurprisingly, Zach Wilson. He posted a pathetic 4.8 yards per attempt on his 42 chucks, going for just 202 yards. Taylor Heinicke, Mike Glennon, Dak Prescott, Jared Goff, and Trevor Lawrence also struggled in this metric this week, although all for different reasons.
The top dog in average depth of attempt was Russell Wilson, with P.J. Walker not far behind and Kirk Cousins also posting a big number. Derek Carr was on the flip side there, sending the majority of looks just a few yards down the field to Hunter Renfrow and ending up with a low 4.3 yard average depth of target. Josh Allen also shows up here with a low 5.1 ADoT, the Bucs blitzed him all day long and he reacted pretty well by getting the ball out quick and bringing his team back from a big deficit. Check out the rest of the data.
Touches Data for Fantasy Football
Alvin Kamara is healthy! He ran the ball 27 times and added four catches to have himself his first big fantasy day in quite awhile. Dalvin Cook was also dominant coming off injury on Thursday Night, getting the ball 28 times (27 rush attempts). Melvin Gordon outdid Javonte Williams in touches 24 to 16 after missing a week, which was probably quite frustrating for Williams' owners (although his double-touchdown day made up for it quite well).
Sony Michel had a disappointing fantasy day, but the workload was there with 20 carries. If you're not catching passes or scoring touchdowns, it becomes quite hard to have a decent fantasy game, but the Rams are clearly confident in Michel having the ball in his hands.
Receivers/Tight Ends Data for Fantasy Football
Four different players earned 15 targets: Chris Godwin, George Kittle, Cooper Kupp, and Justin Jefferson. Hunter Renfrow, Stefon Diggs, and Davante Adams weren't far behind. Those names should all be considered among the top pass catchers moving forward as they have really been in sync with their respective quarterbacks. The air yards total went to Tyler Lockett as he grabbed 144 actual yards on his insane 234 air yards, adding a long touchdown score to make for a smash day. DeAndre Hopkins is a surprise name here with 169 air yards, although that was still mostly volume-based as he saw a dozen targets. This was one of his best games of the year in terms of opportunity, so we'll see if that continues moving forward. Check out the rest of the table yourself!
We'll finish up with the target share progression table, we're just looking at the last five weeks for save-spacing purposes.
Not many surprises at the top of this table here. Kupp and Jefferson grabbed 50%+ target shares for their teams and continue to be dominant WR1's. Amon-Ra St. Brown had another big target share without great results as the Lions really struggle to move the ball, especially without D'Andre Swift in there.
The biggest name missing in the pass game this week was possibly Keenan Allen. In his absence, Josh Palmer saw a big 23.3% target share, beating out Mike Williams slightly. Jalen Guyton saw a 10% share but made hay on a long touchdown catch. Justin Herbert is a huge positive for pass catchers, and these two names will be useful in the future if Keenan or Williams would miss again. You can search up the team abbreviations to see how their target shares have broken down over the last five weeks.
That's it and that's all, thanks for being here once again! Feel free to reach out to me directly for data requests or questions!
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