Hayden Hurst Week 12 Outlook - Chargers at Bills

By Mike Tagliere (FantasyPros), Wed, Nov 25th 2020, 7:45pm EST

Just when it felt like Hurst was becoming one of the top-tier tight ends, he goes out and posts his third game of the season with fewer than 10 yards. I'm not sure what happened for him to get just two targets on the day, but we must consider it a blip on the radar considering he'd seen at least six targets in five of the last six games. He'd also finished as a top-14 tight end in six of his previous eight games, which is consistency that's hard to find at the tight end position. One thing I'd like to note, and it could be a coincidence, but all three games Hurst finished with fewer than 10 yards came with Julio Jones out of the lineup for all/most of the game. It's incredible how Jones opens things up for everyone else. The Raiders have allowed two massive games to Travis Kelce, a solid game to Rob Gronkowski, and nothing to anyone else, which include seven-target games to Hunter Henry and Noah Fant (neither of them topped 33 yards). Despite Kelce ruining their day twice, they've still allowed just 1.58 PPR points per target to tight ends, which ranks as the sixth-fewest in football. Football Outsiders have them listed as the third-toughest matchup for tight ends in their DVOA metric. Hurst isn't likely to put up a dud again, but this matchup isn't a great one. He's just a low-end TE1 for this game.