Fantasy Football Player Notes

Last week's game against the Vikings was not what anyone wanted to see. Unless you are a Seattle fan and love defense, this game was ugly from start to finish. As a result, no one got home for fantasy. This includes JSN, who was on track to beat the all-time receiving yards record, before his two catch, 23-yard performance last week. With how great he has been all season, take the Men in Black approach and erase this from your memory. Moving forward, he has three solid matchups, starting with the Falcons. After starting the year with a decent defense, the Falcons just allowed Adonai Mitchell to have eight catches for 102 yards and a score. That should tell you all you need to know about this matchup. JSN remains one of the best receivers of the season.

Last week's blowout win for Seattle led to muddy snap counts for the backfield again. In the first half, Walker was leading the way with a 54.5% snap rate and 42.1% route share, but he only played one snap out of six possible snaps in the red zone. Seattle remains committed to using Zach Charbonnet as their red zone back. Since Week 11, Walker has averaged 16.3 touches and 95.4 total yards as the RB15 in fantasy points per game. Overall, among 55 qualifying backs, Walker ranks second in explosive run rate and fifth in missed tackle rate. Walker is in a good spot to continue his RB2 production this week. Since Week 9, Atlanta has allowed the fifth-most rushing yards per game, the ninth-highest rushing success rate, the 13th-most yards before contact per attempt, and they have logged the fifth-lowest stuff rate.

Last week, the blowout win for Seattle distorted the snap counts. In the first half, Zach Charbonnet played 45.5% of the snaps with a 5.3% route share. Charbonnet was the early down assistant to Kenneth Walker and the team's red zone back as he had an 83.3% snap share inside the 20-yard line in the first two quarters. Since Week 11, Charbonnet has averaged 11 touches and 44.6 total yards as the RB39 in fantasy points per game. Overall, among 55 qualifying backs, Charbonnet ranks 21st in missed tackle rate and ninth in yards after contact per attempt. Charbonnet remains a decent flex option this week. Since Week 9, Atlanta has allowed the fifth-most rushing yards per game, the ninth-highest rushing success rate, the 13th-most yards before contact per attempt, and they have logged the fifth-lowest stuff rate.

If I'm picking between Cooper Kupp or Rashid Shaheed for a last flex spot as the tertiary Seattle pass catcher to believe in this week, it's Kupp. I'll say that Atlanta has been horrible at defending perimeter wide receivers over the last few weeks, so I could easily be wrong about this and Shaheed could pop off, but looking at their usage against single high, I lean to Kupp. Atlanta has utilized single high at the second-highest rate in the NFL (64%). Since Week 11, against single high, Kupp has ranked second on the team with an 18.8% target share and 18.5% first-read share with 1.12 yards per route run. Since Week 9, Atlanta has allowed the 13th-most fantasy points per game and the seventh-most receiving yards per game to slot receivers.