Fantasy Football Player Notes

Lamar Jackson isn't playing good football. There, I said it. He is the QB14 in fantasy points per game this season. The last time that he cleared 40 rushing yards in a game was Week 4 against the Chiefs, and he's done it only twice this season. After his four passing touchdown performance against the Dolphins in Week 9, Jackson has had only one passing touchdown. Across his last four games, he has finished as the QB15, QB29, QB25, and QB27 in weekly scoring. Since Week 10, among 35 qualifying passers, he ranks 16th in yards per attempt, 35th in highly accurate throw rate, and 29th in catchable target rate. It has been horrible. There's no way around that, and if Jackson can't supplement his struggling passing production with rushing equity, it's tough to trust him in fantasy. Now, as I write this, watch Jackson go out and have a massive bounce-back game against a struggling defense in a divisional game and spike everything I just said in my face. That's the risk of benching Jackson this week, but we can also say that he hasn't played well over the last four games. Since Week 9, Pittsburgh's pass defense has picked up the slack, allowing the seventh-fewest yards per attempt, the ninth-lowest passer rating, the fourth-lowest CPOE, and the eighth-lowest success rate per dropback.