Week 3 certainly had its share of surprises, none more so than the Buffalo Bills going on the road and upsetting the Minnesota Vikings 27-6. With the Vikings as heavy home favorites and Dalvin Cook out, Latavius Murray was a can’t-miss fantasy spot starter in what was expected to be a dream scenario for any running back. Oddly, the opposite proved to be true, as the negative game script would leave Murray with just seven touches and a quiet 8.1 fantasy points in PPR leagues. It was a harsh reminder that no matter how perfect a play looks, the floor is often far lower than we would like to admit.

Of course, the performance of Murray and the Vikings was hardly the only surprising result last week. As always, let’s take a look at some other early-season surprises, stats, and trends entering Week 4, and how they might affect your fantasy football teams moving forward.

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Christian McCaffrey reaches 30 touches in Week 3, but Cam Newton vultures two touchdowns in the red zone

When the Panthers indicated they planned to give McCaffrey 25-30 touches entering the season, it was easy to write it off as coachspeak. And sure enough, over the first two weeks, McCaffrey saw touch totals of 16 and 22 — nothing to complain about, but not quite that monstrous level of volume.

Well, as we saw in Week 3, perhaps it wasn’t such an exaggeration after all, as McCaffrey did hit the 30-touch mark against the Bengals. Even more surprisingly, a majority of it came on the ground, with a whopping 28 carries after only seeing a combined 18 across the prior two games. Seeing 93% of the snaps to this point — second among running backs behind just Ezekiel Elliott — after a somewhat modest Week 1, McCaffrey has quickly proven he will be a real workhorse back in 2018.

There’s just one issue — he’s still not the only show in town when it comes to the prestigious red zone. Newton vultured two rushing touchdowns from five and two yards out in Week 3, and for the season, Newton has seen six red zone carries to McCaffrey’s eight, a near even split. C.J. Anderson also lurks in the background with a pair of red zone carries of his own. This partially explains why in spite of the volume, McCaffrey has yet to hit pay dirt this season.

That being said, we can’t complain about a back who has already hit 28 carries in one game, and 15 targets in another (Week 2). Particularly in PPR leagues, McCaffrey is going to be fantastic. But the shared red zone usage could prove to be occasionally frustrating and may cap his touchdown upside in an otherwise fantastic workload situation. Carolina is on a bye this week, but should be sizable home favorites over the Giants in Week 5.

Julio Jones only see six targets, but still leads the league in air yards (548) and air yards market share (56%)

Speaking of touchdowns, or the lack thereof, Jones remains the poster boy for frustrating scoreless performances. Despite Matt Ryan tallying five passing touchdowns against the Saints, Jones stayed out of the end zone for the third straight week, while Calvin Ridley took all the glory and scored three times — the same number of touchdowns Jones scored all of last season.

While the touchdowns should come around eventually for Jones — he led the Falcons in both red zone targets (19) and targets inside the 10-yard line (11) last year — the more surprising part was his lack of overall volume in Week 3. After seeing target totals of 19 and nine over the first two weeks, Jones only saw six targets, getting out-targeted by both Ridley (eight) and Mohamed Sanu (seven).

But before you grumble too much about Jones playing second-fiddle in a plum spot, keep in mind that he still accumulated 96 yards, putting him at fourth overall in receiving yards this season (329). Perhaps most encouragingly, he leads the league with 548 air yards and a massive 56% air yards market share, and even with the underwhelming target total, he’s still second in target market share (33%). Yes, sometimes it feels like Jones underwhelms when you least expect it, but the blow-up games will come.

Chris Carson inexplicably leads all running backs with 32 rushing attempts in Week 3 

“Inexplicably” because Carson had 13 rushes over the prior two games combined, but it looks like there’s a new sheriff in the Seahawks’ backfield. Following a fairly even split between Carson and Rashaad Penny in the first two weeks, with decidedly little fantasy production from either one, Carson emphatically took the reins in Week 3, out-touching Penny 34-3 with 32 rushes for 102 yards and a score while also catching 2-of-2 targets. That kind of volume will get you thrown into the RB2 mix in a hurry.

That said, we’re still talking about a team with an offensive line that is shaky at best, and all this volume came in a game where Seattle led from start to finish, the best possible game script. In eight career games, Carson has seen over three targets just once — five in Week 1 this year — so his involvement in the passing game doesn’t sound like something we can rely upon when the team falls behind. Furthermore, as we saw last year, Seattle isn’t always the easiest to predict when it comes to running backs, and after spending a first-round pick on Penny, it’s hard to see him completely going away.

Still, at least for now, Carson is back on the radar, and as a road favorite against the Cardinals, game script should work in his favor this week.

Alvin Kamara now ranks third in receptions (30), fourth in targets (38), first in red-zone targets (12), and ninth in receiving yards (289)

So far, Kamara has been everything the people were hoping for and then some, and while there’s still some question whether he’ll lose any volume once Mark Ingram returns in Week 5, it’s hard not to be impressed by what he’s doing as a pass-catcher. If Kamara was strictly a wide receiver, we would be pretty darn happy with his production, with top-10 marks in receptions, targets, and receiving yards. But best of all, he’s seen a league-high 12 targets in the red zone, including four inside the 10-yard line.

Add all that to his 12.3 carries a game, including the second-most rushes in the red zone (15), and the sky is indeed the limit on a Saints team that should continue to find itself in shootouts on a near-weekly basis. Should we be surprised? Perhaps not, but if Ingram doesn’t put a dent in his usage, Kamara will almost certainly make a bid to be this year’s top fantasy player.

Kareem Hunt scores two touchdowns, but only sees one target for the third straight week

On the other hand, Kareem Hunt’s passing game usage has evaporated in the new Patrick Mahomes era. After averaging 3.9 targets per game in his rookie campaign, Hunt has seen three targets total through the first three games — not exactly the bell cow workload we’re looking for out of a first-round pick.

Of course, Hunt still got his points this past week by punching it in twice from one yard out, and he should continue to get plenty of scoring opportunities on an elite offense like this. Even with a weak Kansas City defense that’s allowing a league-worst 474 yards per game, given that the team is averaging a ridiculous 39.3 points per game, Hunt shouldn’t see too many negative game scripts that completely phase him out. Still, the lack of passing game usage is looking like a big knock on Hunts’ PPR value, and even in standard leagues, he’s far less exciting if he’s not going to be a big part of what could be 2018’s best passing attack.

Chris Hogan has only seen 14 targets so far this season

Over the summer, with Brandin Cooks no longer around and Julian Edelman serving a four-game suspension to the begin the season, many expected Hogan to flourish in the early going. As the de facto number-one wideout it would stand to reason that Hogan would see an uptick in volume practically by default.

It hasn’t quite worked out that way, and while Hogan salvaged his Week 2 by scoring twice against a tough Jaguars defense, his overall involvement in the passing game has been disappointing, seeing target totals of five, five, and four, and failing to hit even 50 yards in any game. He ranks just fourth on the team in targets with a middling 14% market share.

Even with their depleted wide receiver corp, few, if any, predicted the Patriots would struggle as much as they have in the early going, and Hogan’s small piece of the pie has left little in the way of results. With Josh Gordon likely entering the mix soon and Edelman returning in Week 5, things don’t figure to get any better for Hogan’s value moving forward.

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