RADIO
The NFL was low on studs in Week 3. The top two players in fantasy, Christian McCaffrey and Saquon Barkley, were both out injured. Three of the top wide receivers in football, Julio Jones, Davante Adams, and Michael Thomas, were all out as well. We also were without the second-best tight end in the game in George Kittle. All told, six of the top 25 fantasy players in the league were sidelined for Week 3. That left us with a lesser slate of stars than we are used to.
Exciting matchups and finishes helped fill the void. But from a fantasy perspective, it leaves something to be desired when Rex Burkhead and Justin Jefferson are two of the top 10 scorers for the week. It is a fun story and something that will impact the subsequent week's waiver wire, but this pair was not even on rosters in the majority of leagues, let alone in starting lineups. It's the reason we gravitate toward players who can put up stud performances consistently. Star players power fantasy and prevent the game from being as random as picking a name out of a hat.
But not all studs always perform up to their standards. Occasionally, these guys fall short of their and our expectations and play like a dud. When it happens outside of an injury, it is something worth exploring. Not all duds are created equal. Some disastrous performances are signs of more to come. Here are Week 3's studs turned duds.
Ezekiel Elliott
It seems silly to call Elliott a dud when he registered nearly 18 PPR points in Week 3. However, a touchdown helped salvage a very weak week for the stud running back. The flow of the Dallas game also worked against the workhorse runner. He managed just 14 carries for 34 yards on the ground. The touchdown and the six catches work just as well for fantasy owners, but the outing is something to monitor.
The Cowboys are throwing the ball more and more. This is partially due to them being down more than expected, and somewhat because their offensive line isn't as good as expected (which leads to them being down). The team also has a high-powered air attack with Dak Prescott and oodles of receiving weapons. All that leaches into Elliott's usage, and usage is one of his best "skills."
Each of the past four years (AKA Elliott's entire NFL career), Elliott has ranked higher in Football Outsiders' DYAR metric than its DVOA metric, and sometimes considerably so. As FO explains, "DYAR means a running back with more total value. DVOA means a running back with more value per play." That doesn't mean Elliott has been bad on a per play basis; he hasn't. But he generates so much production because of how often he is utilized. That utilization is trending in the wrong direction, coinciding with Prescott's pass attempts going from 39 to 47 to 57 in the three games this season. If Dallas continues to throw this much, Elliott will need a touchdown every game to salvage his fantasy week.
Lamar Jackson
Chalk it up to game flow; chalk it up to bad luck; or maybe it's because Jackson and company aren't as good as Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. Either way, this doesn't harm Jackson's value moving forward. He won't be facing off against Mahomes again anytime soon. The week was saved somewhat by 83 yards on the ground, but the numbers are still ugly: 15-of-28 for a career-worst 97 yards passing and two fumbles (one lost). It's essentially a worst-case scenario for Jackson, which is why he's so valuable in fantasy. His legs will produce even when the offense can't complete a pass.
The performance dropped Jackson to 24th in the league in DVOA, just behind Baker Mayfield and Teddy Bridgewater. Yet he remains 13th in QBR, which factors in his rushing ability, among other things. Mahomes is number one overall in QBR, and we all saw why in the head-to-head matchup. Comparing Jackson to Mahomes so bluntly like that had to be a shot to his ego, but Jackson holds onto fantasy stud status with his KC counterpart.
Adam Thielen
Week 2 was easy to explain away. This one is not. The Minnesota offense bounced back in a major way, except it left Thielen behind. He reached the end zone but saw just five targets and made three catches for 29 yards. That was comparable to what he did a week ago, but Kirk Cousins and company kept throwing this time. Dalvin Cook saw the same amount of targets out of the backfield. And rookie Justin Jefferson went off for 175 yards on nine targets. It was essentially the game Thielen was supposed to have.
In the long run, Jefferson becoming a legitimate threat should help Thielen, but what if the young man also passes him in the pecking order? It is far too early to leap to that conclusion. More pressing is trying to balance Minnesota's strength of running the ball (Cook is third in the league in yards over expected) with how often one expects them to be trailing and need to pass to catch up. Thielen remains a top option for Week 4 assuming his Minnesota squad isn't stuck in quarantine after facing Tennessee.
Mike Evans
Evans must be mentioned here as well. Sure, he tallied double-digit fantasy points but put up one of the weirdest lines I can remember. He caught two passes for two yards and two touchdowns. That gives him 108 yards and four touchdowns on the season. Extrapolated over the full year, Evans' final line would be 576 yards and 21 or 22 touchdowns. That is...unsustainable in both aspects. Evans is tied for second in the league in targets inside the five yard line. That's good. He is currently 66th in percentage of team air yards. That's bad. His separation has been okay; his catch percentage less than ideal. Nothing sticks out as a major issue, though, other than his target share. We need to see more from the connection with Tom Brady to know if this is real or noise. For now, the touchdowns will sustain us.
