Skip to main content

6 Interesting Tidbits for Week 2 (Fantasy Football)

6 Interesting Tidbits for Week 2 (Fantasy Football)

Welcome to another season of Interesting Tidbits, where every week we take a look at notable stats and trends and how they might affect your fantasy football teams moving forward. We may only have Week 1 in the books, but we can already begin to deduce whether our expectations for certain players were on point entering the season, or if things already might already be going differently than we thought. Let’s dig in and see what we’ve learned entering Week 2.

View your league’s top available players with My Playbook partner-arrow

James Conner leads all running backs in carries (31) and rushing yards (135) in Week 1

Well, that sure isn’t going to help Le’Veon Bell’s cause.

The Pittsburgh Steelers may have “lost” the game to the Cleveland Browns in a disappointing tie, but it didn’t have anything to do with James Conner, who didn’t miss a beat taking over Bell’s role as the bell-cow back. Some added touches in overtime obviously didn’t hurt, but Conner led all Week 1 running backs in both carries (31) and rushing yards (135) while adding a pair of scores and five receptions for 57 yards. The overall haul gave him 34.2 PPR points, good for fifth overall on the week. Not bad for a guy who was mostly an afterthought over the summer.

Conner was also on the field for nearly 92% of the snaps, and no other Steelers running back saw a single touch in the game. His time in the sun could end at a moment’s notice, but with no indication that Bell is returning any time soon, Conner looks to be a must-start until further notice.

Derrick Henry sees the field for just 29% of the snaps, while Dion Lewis logs 71%

Whoo-boy, that’s not a good sign if you’re relying on Derrick Henry.

Although a split workload was always in the cards between Henry and Dion Lewis, the disparity was far greater than most anticipated, with Lewis seeing far more rushes (16-10) and targets (8-1) than Henry in the opening week. The snap distribution was arguably even more concerning, as Lewis won that battle 49-20. It’s awfully difficult to accumulate fantasy points from the bench.

The day certainly didn’t begin that way either, as Henry had all the appearances of a lead back in the first quarter, seeing the first eight touches of the two backs before taking a back seat the rest of the way. While it’s worth noting that Tennessee trailed for much of this game — which would benefit the pass-catching chops of Lewis — they didn’t fall behind by more than one score until midway into the fourth quarter, so this seemingly wasn’t entirely the result of a negative game script.

But if nothing else, we’ve quickly learned that Henry’s touches could be very sensitive from game-to-game. He’s still the more likely player of the two to salt away the game when the Titans have a lead, which should conceivably lead to some big fantasy weeks, and he ought to also see most of the work at the goal line. However, it’s worth noting that Lewis actually saw two red zone carries to Henry’s one, including one inside the five-yard line.

Maybe this a one-game anomaly — particularly in an unusual Week 1 game that featured two lengthy lightning delays — but the immediate takeaway is it’s difficult to be bullish on Henry moving forward without an injury to Lewis. Whether it’s Marcus Mariota (elbow) or Blaine Gabbert starting at home against the Houston Texans this week, the Titans aren’t likely to be big favorites, so barring a big early lead, a similar distribution could unfold again in Week 2.

No Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver sees more than six targets

Keelan Cole was a popular punt play in DFS circles for Week 1, and while he wasn’t a total bust with three receptions for 54 yards, the volume wasn’t what most were hoping for. Cole may have led the Jaguars in receiving, but he only saw four targets on the day, which trailed both Dede Westbrook (six) and Donte Moncrief (five). Really, none of those tallies are very exciting, and it was actually T.J. Yeldon who would ultimately lead the team in targets (seven) with Leonard Fournette going down with a hamstring injury.

Cole did lead all wideouts in snaps at just under 75%, which suggests he may still be the most likely candidate to emerge as the top dog from this group, but this is a team that ran the highest percentage of rushing plays in 2017, and that doesn’t figure to change much this year. Cole might be worth holding onto in deep formats just in case, but this isn’t looking like a very fantasy-rich situation any time soon.

Christian McCaffrey gets 16 touches in Week 1

So much for 25-30 touches, eh?

Despite the insistence of the Carolina Panthers coaching staff over the summer, no one realistically expected Christian McCaffrey to receive that kind of workload, but his usage during the preseason suggested he would be an every-down back in 2018, leading his draft stock to skyrocket as we got closer to the games that count.

And now that we’ve gotten there, well, perhaps the volume McCaffrey truthers were clamoring for won’t be quite as robust as expected. McCaffrey logged just 10 of Carolina’s 32 carries, with both Cam Newton (13) and C.J. Anderson (7) getting big chunks of the pie. Much like last year, McCaffrey also got plenty of work through the air, catching 6-of-9 targets, but this still isn’t the look of a workhorse back. Perhaps most concerningly, McCaffrey shared red zone work fairly evenly with Newton and Anderson, which could further cap his potential upside.

The good news is McCaffrey still saw 85% of the snaps, which puts him right up there with the league’s elite backs, and his passing game usage should remain high with Greg Olsen out for the long haul. There remains plenty of room for optimism, but for the time being, we may need to pump the breaks on him turning in elite volume.

Jared Cook leads all tight ends in yards (180), receptions (nine) and targets (12)

Oh no, not this again. Jared Cook has teased us with big games before only to disappear again shortly thereafter, and at age 31 should we really expect anything different now?

Still, a game like this certainly can’t be ignored, particularly in a week where those who lost Delanie Walker or Olsen will be looking for a replacement. No doubt, Cook’s performance was largely the result of the Raiders funneling targets to him to avoid Rams cornerbacks Aqib Talib and Marcus Peters, as starting wide receivers Amari Cooper and Jordy Nelson only accounted for a mere seven targets combined.

Needless to say, this won’t be the case every week, but as luck would have it, the Raiders’ next three opponents (at Denver, at Miami, vs. Cleveland) were bottom-five in fantasy points per game allowed to tight ends in 2017. Even if we’re skeptical that this is yet another mirage, at worst, it looks like Cook might be a solid stop-gap for the next few weeks.

Jarvis Landry receives the second-most air yards behind only Julio Jones in Week 1

The narrative on Jarvis Landry has always been that he’s a high-floor, low-ceiling PPR fantasy asset due to his high volume of targets, but low average depth of target. In 2017, while Landry was tied for third in targets (161), trailing Antonio Brown by just one, he saw less than half the air yards (1,023) and average depth of target (6.4). Sure enough, despite 116 receptions, Landry only managed 987 receiving yards.

But will that change on the Cleveland Browns? Landry saw a whopping 15 targets in Week 1, catching seven for 106 yards, but it also came with a hefty 223 air yards and a 13.9 average depth of target. Clearly, Landry isn’t being used the same way he was in Miami, and wouldn’t you know it, his current offensive coordinator is Todd Haley, who just so happened to coach Brown.

Landry’s 38% target market share will probably take a hit once Josh Gordon gets up to speed, but it’s hard to not be excited by the early returns on his new squad.

Import your team to My Playbook for instant Lineup & Trade advice partner-arrow


Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | TuneIn | RSS

Kenyatta Storin is a featured writer with FantasyPros. For more from Kenyatta, check out his archive and follow him @kenyattastorin.

More Articles

Thor Nystrom’s 2024 NFL Draft Big Board: Top 500 Rookie Rankings & Comps

Thor Nystrom’s 2024 NFL Draft Big Board: Top 500 Rookie Rankings & Comps

fp-headshot by Thor Nystrom | 10 min read
Video: 2024 NFL Mock Draft – Three Rounds Expert Picks With Trades (2024)

Video: 2024 NFL Mock Draft – Three Rounds Expert Picks With Trades (2024)

fp-headshot by FantasyPros Staff | 2 min read
2024 NFL Mock Draft: Full Seven Rounds With Trades

2024 NFL Mock Draft: Full Seven Rounds With Trades

fp-headshot by PJ Moran | 13 min read
2024 NFL Mock Draft With Trades: Picks & Predictions (3.0)

2024 NFL Mock Draft With Trades: Picks & Predictions (3.0)

fp-headshot by Marco Enriquez | 7 min read

About Author

Hide

Current Article

4 min read

Thor Nystrom’s 2024 NFL Draft Big Board: Top 500 Rookie Rankings & Comps

Next Up - Thor Nystrom’s 2024 NFL Draft Big Board: Top 500 Rookie Rankings & Comps

Next Article