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Eight weeks in the books now, and it was another wild week of football. More surprise performances, big-time duds, and one massive injury that will change your fantasy league's landscape for the rest of the year.
I appreciate everybody that's been following along with this post series, and I hope you're getting used to using these tables and finding helpful insights from them. If you're new to this post series, I will highly recommend that you view this post on a tablet or a PC. The tables just don't look quite as pristine on your smartphone, so if you please shift to those other devices.
First let's start, as usual, with the team plays breakdown from Week 8.
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Situational Data
The Jets had their best performance of the year as quarterback Mike White threw for 405 yards and beat the Bengals. That was a fast-paced game as the Jets ran 84 plays with a 68% pass rate and a 58% neutral pass rate. I don't think many people saw that coming. The Titans continue to find themselves in fast-paced games as the Colts ran 81 plays to be second on the slate, and the Chiefs once again were far from dominant in their three-point win over the Giants. They ran 80 plays and really stressed the pass again, throwing it 69% of the time.
The bottom teams in terms of plays run were the 49ers, Falcons, and Broncos. We have come to expect the 49ers and Broncos to end near the end of this list, but the Falcons have usually been in the middle of the pack. Philadelphia, Carolina, Chicago, and New England maintained their run-heavy ways leading the slate in neutral situation rush rate, and on the other end of that spectrum were the Bills, Colts, and Jaguars with the highest neutral situation pass rates.
Washington tight ends and Adam Thielen have been staples at the top of this table all year, playing nearly every single snap for their team. Chase Claypool saw a big boost in snap count, notching a season-high 97% there. Chris Godwin also posted a big number in snaps with Antonio Brown down again, he has proven to be a total usage stud with AB not playing.
Some less encouraging names: Dalvin Cook (71%), D'Andre Swift (71%), Jamison Crowder (61%), Javonte Williams (43%).
Quarterbacks Data for Fantasy Football
Trevor Lawrence struggled this week, posting a putrid 4.4 yards per attempt on his 54 throws. He's shown some signs this year, but overall has proven to need a lot more refinement before he's ready to be a must-start fantasy guy. Carson Wentz struggled a bit as well, and Aaron Rodgers had his second-worst week of the year, but of course, we can forgive that as Davante Adams was not on the field for him.
The yards per attempt crown goes to Jimmy Garoppolo, who was once again quite efficient on a low number of attempts. Matthew Stafford kept his name in the MVP consideration with a strong 305-yard day on 32 attempts, and Tom Brady didn't look too bad either with a 9.4 YPA.
The highest average depth of attempts went to Jalen Hurts, who threw the ball just 14 times as the Eagles ran all over the Lions on Sunday. Justin Fields also chucked it deep but struggled overall with just 175 yards through the air. Carson Wentz and Mac Jones threw the ball deeper than they had been, teaching notching an ADoT above nine yards. The shortest pass attempt guys were Jameis Winston, Daniel Jones, Aaron Rodgers, and Sam Darnold, all coming in under five yards on average.
Touches Data for Fantasy Football
The elite workload continued for Najee Harris who ran the ball 26 times and added three catches in the Steelers' low-scoring win in Cleveland. This will sadly be the last time we see Derrick Henry near the top of this list, as his season is over. It will be mighty interesting to see the Titans touch data for next week after they've added Adrian Peterson to the squad.
It was another really encouraging week for Khalil Herbert who continued to be the Bears' primary back, carrying the ball 24 times. Damien Williams did not even notch five attempts, which left him off this chart entirely. He seems to be the guy to start in Chicago until David Montgomery returns. Damien Harris only played about half the Patriots' snaps, but still found himself 24 carries. It's a pretty good bet that if that guy is on the field, he's getting the ball.
Check out the rest of the table for more insights.
Receivers/Tight Ends Data for Fantasy Football
The Chiefs had a game plan on Monday Night of just getting the ball to Tyreek Hill, going to him early and often and getting him to 18 targets. It's pretty amazing that he didn't get to 100 yards through the air on all those looks, as he failed to grab any of the really long attempts. Diontae Johnson saw 15 targets but caught just six of them, a testament to the Browns pass rush. There should be really good times ahead for Diontae.
Michael Pittman and Michael Carter were next on the list with 15 and 14 targets respectively, those are exciting young guys full of talent to roster right now as their teams make an effort to get them more involved.
The ADoT kings this week: Mike Evans (28.5 on four targets), John Ross (24.3 on three), Nelson Agholor (21.8 on six), Darnell Mooney (17.2 on nine), Tee Higgins (16.8 on six), DeAndre Carter (15.7 on six), and Kyle Pitts (14.8 on six).
We'll finish up with the target share progression table, we're just looking at the last five weeks for save-spacing purposes.
Lockett grabbed an insane 59% target share in week eight, and T.J. Hockenson and Dallas Goedert also were above 50%. Those are outrageous workloads. It was a bit of an encouraging week for Brandon Aiyuk as well as he notched his first target share above 20%, and it was the whole way up at 31%. Aaron Jones showed that he's the Packers leading receiver with Adams out, as he grabbed a 39% share. More big work for D.J. Moore with a 40% target share, but not again not much to show for it as Sam Darnold once again struggled, this time against a pretty beatable defense. Sad times for Panthers pass catchers.
Alvin Kamara came way down to 18% after a huge performance in week seven when he showed a 50% target share. D'Andre Swift also kicked down to a much more realistic 23% share after showing off a 35% in Week 7. You can search that table by team abbreviation to see how each team broke down their target shares (I leave off anybody averaging less than a 5% target share over the last five weeks, so the sums won't go up to 100% for most teams).
That's it and that's all, thanks for being here! Happy November, RotoBaller readers!
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