Fantasy Football Player Notes

In the words of the old NBA Jam video game, "He's on fire!" Mike Evans is playing lights out football here recently and fantasy managers have to be thrilled that they paid up for him in their drafts. Even with Brown and Godwin producing solid numbers so far this season, Evans continues to dominate. Over his last four games, Evans has 369 receiving yards and four total touchdowns. The lowest receiving yardage total he's had during that time period is 75 yards, which is an incredibly high floor for fantasy purposes. In years past, there's been plenty of volatility with Evans from a fantasy perspective and you simply had to live with the big performances and the games that he would seemingly disappear. 2021 is a different story for the veteran receiver though and he's done nothing but produce at a high level outside of week one. With Brady showing no signs of a drop-off in play, Evans should continuously be in the high-end/mid-range WR2 conversation. Against the Eagles defense that held the Panthers' passing game in check, but got shredded by Mahomes and the Chiefs just two weeks ago, Evans is a rock-solid start.

When Bernard was activated right before kickoff last week, I panicked and dropped Leonard Fournette a bit in my weekly rankings. He was definitely still worth starting, but I had plenty of concerns about what his workload would be with Gio in the fold. While Bernard was able to find the end zone as a receiver, it didn't make much of a difference for Fournette and he appears to now have locked away the starting role in this offense. Fournette had 17 total opportunities in week five against the Dolphins and he turned it into 110 total yards and a score. He is experiencing a career resurgence here in Tampa Bay and he's looking like the old Fournette that we saw at LSU that was worthy of the No. 4 overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft. He's pulled away from Jones from a snap count perspective (46 snaps in week five to just 10 for Jones) and he still maintained a heavy workload through the air with Gio active. Moving forward, there's no reason why we shouldn't view Fournette as a mid-range RB2 every single week. He's in one of the league's top offenses and he's now secured this starting job. Against Philadelphia, who just allowed Chuba Hubbard to run for over 100 yards, Fournette's a rock-solid start as a mid-range RB2 with upside.

Chris Godwin was viewed as the safest Bucs receiving option coming into the season and that's exactly what he's been through the first five weeks of the season. In any of his five games this year, Godwin hasn't finished with less than 55 receiving yards. While it's difficult to watch what other fantasy managers are getting with AB and Evans in this offense, there's a lot to be said for consistency from your WR1 or WR2 spot. Godwin isn't going to bring you week-winning upside unless he finds the end zone, but he's one of the most reliable fantasy assets at the WR position currently. We need to downgrade him slightly to account for his lack of upside, but not by much. He can be viewed as a mid-range/low-end WR2 in week six against the Eagles' secondary that's not going to have a prayer for stopping this Bucs passing attack.

If we remove the fluke week two outing against Atlanta from Antonio Brown's statistics, here's what his weekly average would look like from a production standpoint. 8.66 targets, 6.33 receptions, 102.66 receiving yards, and one touchdown per game. For fantasy managers that spent a mid-round pick on AB, that is music to your ears. He's providing huge performances in certain matchups and yet he's also bringing a safe floor in games where he doesn't find the end zone. There's no reason why AB shouldn't be moving up the rest-of-season rankings into low-end WR2 territory and he comes with massive upside every single week. Against the Eagles this week on Thursday Night Football, Brown should be viewed in that range to account for the possibility that the touchdowns go to one of the other dynamic receiving options in this offense, but there's also the strong possibility that he finishes as a top-5 WR yet again. Start AB if you've got him.

Giovani Bernard was able to fight through injury to play last week and he was able to cash in and find the end zone as a receiver. However, Fournette appears to have completely taken over this job in Tampa, which means that there's very little leftover opportunity for Bernard. He can't be started in any format at this point. Ronald Jones has now seen his snaps steadily decrease from 26 in week two all the way to just 10 total snaps in week five against Miami. Fournette has completely secured this job, which now puts Jones into the insurance-RB conversation at best. If you need to move on from him to be able to add an RB who is set to see an increased workload in week six and who can help your lineup right away, you can do so confidently.