32 Fantasy Stats, Week 14: Matthew Stafford's Rebound
Desmond Ridder has as many 300-yard games as Patrick Mahomes.
He also has as many such games as Jalen Hurts and Justin Herbert. Ridder has had an up-and-down season but offers the occasional spike week for fantasy managers desperate enough to start him. He also has five rushing touchdowns to his name this year.
Keaton Mitchell saw 50 percent of the Ravens’ carries.
Mitchell’s previous season-high in carry share was 30 percent. He only earned nine carries as the Ravens leaned on their passing attack, but it was another step in the right direction of the electric UDFA. He turned his nine carries into 54 scoreless yards.
Stefon Diggs earned a 30 percent target share for the first time since Week 8.
Diggs saw 12 targets and earned a 43 percent air yards share. Diggs’ usage took a notable hit when the Bills elevated Dalton Kincaid’s role after Dawson Knox went down. Knox was back last week and, although Kincaid was still involved, Diggs immediately returned to his alpha receiver status.
The Panthers have a -13 percent pass rate over expected since firing Frank Reich.
Reich was fired two games ago. Since then, the Panthers have lost in a blowout to the Saints and a close match with the Bucs. In those two games, Chuba Hubbard has 48 carries for 191 yards and two touchdowns. In what should be a low-scoring affair with the Falcons, Hubbard will continue to see plenty of carries in Week 15.
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D’Onta Foreman logged a 56 percent snap share.
Foreman out-carried his backups 11-4 and even out-targeted them 3-0. It was his first game back after missing a few weeks because of an ankle issue. He was clearly back at full strength as the Bears gave him the lead-back role immediately.
The Bengals have generated 559 yards after contact in Jake Browning’s three starts.
That’s nearly two-thirds of his passing production coming from yards after the catch. Three of his four touchdowns as a starter have come after the catch as well. This isn’t to say Browning shouldn’t get credit for some of that YAC and those touchdowns. Well-thrown passes are more likely to generate YAC than poorly placed balls and Browning has been reading defenses well enough to put his teammates in good positions. However, it should have us tempering our expectations when Browning faces off against a stingy Minnesota defense in Week 15.
Joe Flacco threw for more passing yards (311) in a game than Deshaun Watson has in a single week as a member of the Browns.
Flacco is slinging it and the Browns are letting him do his thing. He has an average target depth of 9.4 yards. That ranks fourth in the NFL among passers with at least 50 pass attempts. With a functioning quarterback under center, the Browns are starting to open up their passing game.
They have a five percent pass rate over expected in Flacco’s two starts and a 61.1 percent pass rate on early downs.
Dak Prescott is averaging 26.6 fantasy points per game since the Cowboys’ Week 7 bye.
Prescott is throwing for 310 yards and over three touchdowns per game since the bye. Mike McCarthy took the week off to retool his strategy and came out of the break with an elite game plan: Let the MVP quarterback throw the football a lot. Since the bye, Dallas has a seven percent pass rate over expected.
Russell Wilson is one of two quarterbacks with a passing touchdown in every game this year.
The other is Josh Allen. Wilson hasn’t always passed the eye test this year. He is 17th in PFF passing grade and 16th in EPA per play. However, he is rushing more often than in recent years and is throwing touchdowns at a top-three rate.
Jameson Williams ran a route on less than half of the Lions’ dropbacks.
Williams’ role peaked in Week 11 when he ran a route on 66 percent of his team’s dropbacks. He has since seen his route share decline, bottoming out at 48 percent in Week 14. His most notable contribution in recent weeks has been as an end-around gadget player.
Jayden Reed had two more air yards (12) than targets (10).
There’s also this:
Jayden Reed finished with just 27 receiving yards on 8 receptions tonight:
It’s the second-fewest yards by a wide receiver with 8+ receptions in NFL History.
The fewest was James Jones in 2014 against Denver who caught 8 passes for 20 yards.— Connor Allen (@ConnorAllenNFL) December 12, 2023
In PPR leagues, Reed easily got home with eight catches. For standard leagues, he took a 20-yard carry to the house.
C.J. Stroud scored nine fewer points in Week 14 than in any other game of his career.
Obviously, playing only 13 games is going to exacerbate that deficit, but it’s fair to say Week 14 was Stroud’s worst game by far. There was no factor imaginable that wasn’t working against Stroud in Week 14. He was playing against an elite Jets defense in a game with high winds and heavy rain. The Texans had just lost Tank Dell coming into the game and then lost Nico Collins early in the contest. That was on top of the team missing Dalton Schultz. Though his numbers will take a hit if Collins and Schultz are out for Week 15, he should rebound versus the Titans.
Zack Moss is third among running backs in expected fantasy points over the past two weeks.
Moss has 41.5 expected fantasy points in Jonathan Taylor’s current, two-week absence. Unfortunately, he also leads all running backs in fantasy points under expected. His -24.2 FPOE is over twice that of the No. 2 running back. Moss has an elite role and it’s only a matter of time before he gets home for a big game.
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Zay Jones tied his career-high in targets (14).
Jones previously saw 14 targets in 2022. He caught 11 of them for 145 yards that week. This time around, he had five catches for 29 yards. He had a 31 percent target share and a 48 percent air yards share versus the Browns. With Christian Kirk done for the regular season, Jones could be in line for WR2 numbers to close the year.
Jerick McKinnon played on 60 percent of the Chiefs’ short down and distance snaps and 100 percent of the long down and distance snaps.
McKinnon also saw nearly every one of the Chiefs’ two-minute drill reps. He was on the field for the vast majority of Kansas City’s high-leverage plays and let Clyde Edwards-Helaire handle the work between the 20s.
Davante Adams has a 34 percent target share and a 53 percent air yards share since Aidan O’Connell reclaimed the starting job.
Of course, fantasy managers who have been banking on big games from Adams over that span have been left empty-handed. Adams has averaged 5.8 catches for 66 yards over his past five appearances. He has one touchdown and no 100-yard performances in that sample. Still, the data says to keep firing him up based on his elite usage.
Day Three quarterbacks making their first start have averaged 179 passing yards since 2000.
This is relevant because Easton Stick is set to make his first career start on Thursday with Justin Herbert done for the year. Stick has seen nearly all of his NFL action in the preseason, averaging 5.4 yards per attempt with four touchdowns and eight interceptions. This doesn’t look like it will end well for the LA pass-catchers.
Matthew Stafford has the highest EPA per play against both the Browns and Ravens.
Stafford has faced the two best defenses in the NFL by EPA dropback allowed over the past two weeks. He shredded both of them for a combined 573 yards and six touchdowns. The defenses got to him for two sacks and no interceptions.
De’Von Achane earned a 27 percent target and a 23 percent air yards share.
Achane only saw seven carries but partially made up for the lack of rush attempts with a team-high nine targets. He nearly got home on a bomb from Tua Tagovailoa, but the two couldn't connect. Achane left at least 40 yards on the table with this play alone.
Ty Chandler out-snapped Kene Nwangwu 40-3.
Alexander Mattison went down with an ankle injury early in Week 14. Ty Chandler saw nearly every snap and touch for the Vikings in his absence. With Mattison likely to miss at least Week 15 with the injury, Chandler has RB2 upside for the foreseeable future.
Ezekiel Elliott’s 27 points in Week 14 are more than Tony Pollard has had in a single game this year.
With Rhamondre Stevenson out, Zeke stepped into a three-down role versus the Steelers. He played on 91 percent of the Pats’ snaps and earned all of the team's running back carries. Zeke even added seven catches for 72 yards and a touchdown. Zeke won’t do much on the ground versus the Chiefs in Week 15, but he should rack up receptions with ease.
Chris Olave leads the NFL in air yards (1,706).
Olave is sixth in the NFL in air yards share. On the other hand, he also leads the NFL in unrealized air yards.
Chris Olave has an NFL-high 1,093 unrealized air yards this season. Nobody else is even at 900.
— Ian Hartitz (@Ihartitz) December 11, 2023
It may not happen for Olave this year, but in dynasty and keeper leagues, “We stan.”
Jalin Hyatt earned 26 percent of the Giants’ targets and 65 percent of their air yards.
Since Week 9, Hyatt has seen 46 percent of Tommy DeVito’s air yards. The downside is that less than half of his targets have been deemed catchable by PFF over that span. That should be expected as he has a 25 aDOT in those games.
Breece Hall has seen 47 percent of the Jets’ carries over the past two weeks.
From Week 5 to Week 12, that number was at 71 percent. The Jets have reintroduced Dalvin Cook into the mix, crushing Hall’s workload on the ground. He has been saving the day through receptions in recent weeks but is far from the RB1 we thought he could be.
A.J. Brown earned a 46 percent target share and a 50 percent air yards share.
Brown’s role took a hit for a few weeks while Dallas Goedert was sidelined. The Eagles emphasized DeVonta Smith at Brown’s expense in those games. Smith still played a strong role in Week 14, but Brown was back to his usual, target dominating ways.
Pittsburgh Steelers
Since Mike Tomlin named Jaylen Warren the Steelers’ starting running back, he has seen 36 percent of the team’s carries.
That happened in Week 10. His carry share was at 31 percent before that game but his target share has actually fallen by one percent. In reality, nothing changed despite Tomlin’s false promises. Najee Harris is still earning more carries than Warren and should be ranked ahead of the satellite back in weekly rankings.
George Kittle leads all tight ends in yards per route run (2.25).
What’s most incredible about that stat is Kittle is on pace for just his fourth-best season by yard per route run. He topped 2.8 yards per route run in all three of his best seasons. Kittle can be the most efficient tight end in the NFL despite coming nowhere close to his own best season.
Zach Charbonnet led the Seahawks with nine carries and 44 rushing yards.
If that wasn’t surprising enough, Charbonnet ran 10 routes to Kenneth Walker’s 22. Walker earned eight carries. Both backs entered Week 14 listed as questionable with various injuries. It’s hard to take much away from this game given that we don’t know how healthy either back was, but this can be treated as a committee until further notice.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Mike Evans is seventh in ESPN’s Open Score.
Evans has an 82 rating in the metric. That is his second-highest Open Score since 2017. Evans is also on pace for his best season ever by yards per route run. No matter which way you look at it, Evans hasn’t lost a step as he heads into free agency in the offseason.
Since Will Levis took over, DeAndre Hopkins has seen 46 percent of the Titans’ air yards.
Levis has been locked on his No. 1 receiver from the start, but things have been getting absurd in recent weeks. He has over 400 air yards over his past two games. The Titans’ run-first approach is the only thing standing between Nuk and WR1 status.
