RADIO
We are through three clean weeks of NFL action, and boy is it nice to have games running on time with no weird COVID postponements or anything like that.
Three weeks is still a pretty small data sample, but the NFL season is short so we have to make do with what we have. All of a sudden we are 16.7% of the week done with the regular season (17.6% if you're talking about individual teams). With how important every single result is in a fantasy football season, we had better really start getting our head around the league's data in a hurry.
Here are the data dumps for Week 3.
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Situational Data
The Steelers led the way in plays run, and they threw the ball an absurd 77% of the time while mostly keeping the ball close to the line of scrimmage. You probably saw some "highlights" of Ben Roethlisberger's struggles last week. It hasn't been a pretty start to the year for Big Ben, and the Steelers' offensive struggles have followed. That did open the door for Najee Harris to have his most successful week (by fantasy points scored, at least), and we'll get more into that later.
Tampa Bay continues to throw the ball a ton, Philadelphia was forced into some more throws than normal by the Cowboys, but interestingly they posted a very high situation neutral pass rate as well (and it did not work well). Miami, Washington, Seattle, and the Chargers also threw the ball a bunch all game, and in the neutral situations as well.
In terms of deep passes attempted (25+ air yards), the Vikings, Falcons, and Bears check-in at 0%. The Falcons' deep pass numbers continue to look dreary for the pass catchers there, and the Falcons once again underwhelmed on Sunday. The last note I have is that the Jaguars ran the ball more last week and threw it deep less, possibly a sign for the future as that new Trevor Lawrence-led offense continues to develop.
Snap Count Leaders
Two familiar tight end names top the snaps list this week, with fewer 100% marks than we've seen so far this year. DeVonta Smith got another vote of confidence from the Eagles, being on the field for nearly every play in the Eagles' pass-heavy attack. Darnell Mooney has been playing tons of snaps all year long now, as has Terry McLaurin and Adam Thielen. Chris Godwin, indeed, saw a role boost without Antonio Brown - he should be used with extra confidence if AB continues to miss time.
Some more discouraging numbers here: Chris Carson (43%), Devin Singletary (43%), AJ Dillon (29%), Damien Harris (31% despite James White exiting early), Jonnu Smith (42%), and Julio Jones (50% despite A.J. Brown missing nearly the entire game).
On to passers!
Quarterbacks
What a strange game from Mac Jones. His ADoT took a massive upward tick, as he averaged 12.4 air yards per attempt on his 51 throws. However, he generated just 5.3 actual yards per attempt. 633 air yards and just 270 actual yards. The Saints' defense is very good, but that's not a good sign for Jones right now. That is after posting some of the lowest air yards per pass totals in weeks one and two. Lamar Jackson continued his "run or throw it deep" approach, but he was victimized by a few crushing drops from Marquise Brown that would have gone for long gains (and likely touchdowns).
In terms of efficiency, Joe Burrow led the way with a beautiful 9.6 yards per attempt, beating out the league's most efficient passers in Teddy Bridgewater, Russell Wilson, and Kyler Murray.
Running Backs
Derrick Henry extended his lead on the field with 32 more touches, creating a huge gap on the season leaderboard as Christian McCaffrey got hurt. Alexander Mattison stepped right into the Dalvin Cook role, being wildly productive with his 32 touches. Najee Harris posted one of the craziest lines you'll ever see for a running back, grabbing 14 balls on 19 targets and smashing in fantasy without the help of a touchdown.
Peyton Barber and Sony Michel saw huge touch counts as they were forced into starting roles with their teams' starters sidelined. Another strong step forward for Saquon Barkley, grabbing 16 carries and six catches, he could be about to really take off and earn that first-round value.
On the negative side of things, David Montgomery's low touch count came down due to Justin Fields and the Bears just not being able to do anything at all with the ball. Trey Sermon earned a pretty disappointing 14 touches as the 49ers elected to throw the ball a bunch and even Kyle Juszczyk five carries in the absence of all those other running backs. Miles Sanders probably saw the most deflating touch count of the week, grabbing just five touches on two rush attempts. Jalen Hurts' propensity for the rush really drains running back catches, and if the Eagles continue the pass rate we saw above, Sanders is in serious trouble.
You can keep analyzing that table yourself, now we'll move on to pass catchers.
Receivers/Tight Ends
Two Steelers and Davante Adams at the top of the list. Adams had a classic alpha WR1 game with 18 targets and a big ADoT of 14.1. He's firmly the #1 fantasy wide receiver in the game right now after that week one mini-scare. Jakobi Meyers was the beneficiary of the Patriots' 51 pass attempts, although he turned his 14 targets into a somewhat disappointing yardage total of 94.
On the ADoT column, we see that DeSean Jackson still has some upside left in him, seeing five targets with an absurd 27.2 ADoT. Nelson Agholor is the Patriots' favorite deep target, but, as we saw above, Mac Jones did not put the ball on target very much on Sunday and Agholor's 180 air yards turned into just 17 actual yards.
Marquise Brown could have had his third monster game of the year if not for three big drops. Despite that, his 161 air yards showcase once again his huge upside.
Here is a new table I will be publishing this week and moving forward. I looked at targets, air yards, snap share, and ADoT for every player who had at least one target and then compared each value to their previous season average. I'm not showing the season averages for space-saving purposes, but you can see how much higher or lower each value was than the season averages in the "delta" columns. Check it out:
So if you sort by "Tgt Delta", you'll see that Najee Harris led the way with a +15. His 19 targets in week three were 15 targets higher than his previous season average of four. You can sort through the other categories as well there and/or search for a player you're interested in.
As always, let me know if you have any questions or suggestions for this weekly piece! I am always reachable on Twitter @JonPGH. Thanks for reading!
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