5 Burning Questions For Week 14 (2021 Fantasy Football)

Remember to reach out with questions on Twitter (@toomuchtuma) anytime.

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1. Is Ezekiel Elliott completely washed?

Here’s an interesting question. What, if anything, is Zeke better at than Tony Pollard at this point in his career? To answer this I decided to dive into the advanced stats. Let’s take a look.

The biggest takeaways I see is that Zeke isn't close to Pollard in explosiveness at this point. Pollard easily has him beat in PFF's elusive rating and breakaway rate, and that has been easy to tell via the eye test in 2021. Elliott is still a good "chunk runer", rating 19th in the league in NFL Next Gen Stats' success rate metric. It's worth noting that Elliott ranked higher a few weeks ago, which is when his lingering knee injury has seemingly become more of a problem.

The Zeke defenders can fall back on his PFF pass blocking grade, but even then it isn't as if Elliott is a standout, ranking just 39th among qualified backs. PFF grades can be somewhat subjective, of course, and if the Cowboys view the elder as the superior pass blocker responsible for protecting franchise QB Dak Prescott, who are we to argue with them?

So what are the takeaways for fantasy? Dallas has some tasty matchups coming up, including two games against Washington, one against the Giants, and another against the run-funnel Cardinals. After a Thanksgiving weekend report that Dallas might give Elliott's balking knee some rest, he was once again active this past Thursday night against the Saints. As long as both RBs are active on game days it's hard to recommend Pollard over Zeke given the usage. Unless he actually winds up sitting I'll continue to rank Zeke higher on a weekly basis, but I'm not happy to do so.

2. Is Leonard Fournette a league-winner?

It's beginning to seem like it. Entering 2021 the Bucs' backfield looked like a possible three-headed nightmare for fantasy purposes, but Fournette has fully taken the reigns at this point. Not only has he iced Ronald Jones on early downs, but what has elevated "Lombardi Lenny" to full-fledged RB1 status has been his domination of the passing-game work.

As PFF's Dwain McFarland points out in his fantastic weekly read, the Utilization Report, Fournette is either handling all of the long-down-and-distance snaps or the full two-minute work on a weekly basis. Some weeks he has handled both, which has rendered Giovani Bernard an afterthought.

Fournette hasn't been particularly special as an individual runner, ranking 33rd in PFF's elusive rating and 46th in breakaway rate. He certainly isn't as explosive as he once was, though he's evading tackles at the second-highest clip of his career. NFL Next Gen Stats thinks he has been efficient with his touches, ranking 20th in success rate.

More than anything, the combination is what this comes down to. Fournette isn't necessarily elite at any one trait, but he has transformed himself into a complete back. his 67.9 PFF pass blocking grade ranks 11th in the NFL, which is likely what has led to him playing on all three downs for one of the best offenses in football. That sets him up as a borderline top-five fantasy RB down the stretch.

Leonard Fournette PFF pass-blocking grade by season:

'17: 54.6
'18: 37.4
'19: 33.6
'20: 28.9 🛑
'21: 67.9 ✅

After icing Ronald Jones on early downs this is how he dominated passing-game work too

A three-down back playing in one of the best offenses in the NFL = top 5 FF RB

— Brendan Tuma (@toomuchtuma) December 8, 2021

3. Is Devonta Freeman underrated?

The 29-year-old has quietly strung together some pretty usable fantasy performances over the past five weeks. Finding the end zone three times certainly helps, but Week 13 saw Freeman handle a season-high 69% of the snaps. He's also handling most of the passing game work in addition to the goal-line opportunities.

Freeman isn't as dynamic of a playmaker as he once was, but playing a majority of the snaps in a strong rushing attack can help propel nearly any RB into being a trustworthy fantasy option. It was easy to write him off earlier in the year when the Ravens were still incorporating Ty'Son Williams and Le'Veon Bell. Now Freeman only has to deal with Latavius Murray and it seems as if he has won the internal battle. Baltimore closes the season with some strong running back matchups against Cleveland, Green Bay, Cincinnati, and the LA Rams. Freeman is a low-end RB2.

4. Have we seen the best of Elijah Moore?

For his career, absolutely not. For the remainder of '21? It's hard to say. Moore's value has been on the rise over the past month. Since his Week 8 breakout against the Bengals Moore ranks eighth among wide receivers in targets (48), sixth in yards after the catch (168) and sixth in yards per route run (2.59).

Now Corey Davis is lost for the season. Moore is dealing with some pretty subpar quarterback play in Zach Wilson, but nothing seems to be slowing him down. He has also had to deal with the likes of Mike White, Josh Johnson, and Joe Flacco.

Earlier this year, Moore was being targeted when he was on the field. The issue was that he just wasn't playing all that much. Now that his route% has reached full-time starter status, and with Davis out of the picture, the rookie should be treated as a firm WR2.

It was assumed that Elijah Moore's best path to production possibly was through the slot

This isn't slot stuff from the rookie (347 snaps outs vs 125 inside).

Year two could be a whole lot of fun. pic.twitter.com/rRsFsBORGK

— Josh Norris (@JoshNorris) December 6, 2021

5. Was Travis Kelce a Round 1 bust this year?

Some version of this question has been going around Twitter recently. To start, let's look at Kelce's ranking compared to the rest of his position. After all, he was primarily a first-round fantasy selection due to being the most bankable tight end. Entering Week 14 only Rob Gronkowski has scored more fantasy points per game. This is true whether you use PPR or half-PPR scoring. Of course, Gronk has missed a lot of time, and if you go by total fantasy points then Kelce is still the king.

Diving into Kelce specifically, his yards per route run is at an all-time low (1.81). He has been at or above 2.09 dating back to every year since 2016. His 7.7 ADOT is also noticeably down from his 2017-20 peak, when it was between 8.9 and 9.6 in each season. The Chiefs' offense hasn't been as elite this year. The question becomes is that partly due to Kelce's decline, or is Kelce's decline a product of Kansas City's struggles?

I use that word "decline" very loosely. Kelce hasn't technically been as good in 2021, but he's still the TE2 in points per game and the TE1 overall! Is there anyone else you'd rather have at his position entering the fantasy playoffs? One could argue Gronk or George Kittle, perhaps. You drafted Kelce for safety and he has provided it. Selecting him over any of the Round 1 RBs who got injured seems like it worked out.

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