32 Fantasy Stats, Week 5: Breece Hall has Arrived
Emari Demercado saw 10 carries and three targets after the first quarter.
James Conner went down with a knee injury at the top of the second quarter and did not return. He is now expected to miss multiple weeks because of the issue. Demercado ran a route on 67 percent of the Cardinals’ dropbacks and did not cede a carry to Corey Clement, the only other running back active for the Cardinals. Demercado is arguably the top option on waivers this week.
Kyle Pitts leads all tight ends in air yards (363) and is seventh in targets (30).
An understandable criticism of Pitts and his market share stats is that what they are really saying is he is getting a large cut of a truly disgusting pie. The good news is that even his raw stats are among the best in the league. Desmond Ridder’s terrible accuracy has maligned Pitts all season. In Week 5, that reversed course and Pro Football Focus deemed 90 percent of Pitts’ targets as catchable. In turn, he posted seven catches for 87 yards en route to a TE1 performance. This won’t always be the case, but it goes to show how much potential the third-year tight end has when his targets are accurate.
Lamar Jackson ranks second in the NFL in drop rate.
Only C.J. Stroud has seen a higher percentage of his passes dropped and only Matthew Stafford has lost more air yards to drops. Jackson hasn’t magically turned back into the MVP passer he was in 2019 because of a new offensive coordinator, but the lack of talent around him is doing Jackson no favors.
Gabe Davis is the only player in the NFL with four touchdowns.
Davis doesn’t lead the NFL in receiving scores. D.J. Moore, Tyreek Hill, and Stefon Diggs are tied at the top with five scores. He is just the only player with exactly four scores. Davis is tied for sixth in the NFL in end zone targets and has looked better in all sections of the field this year. He went from averaging 1.43 yards per route run in 2022 to 1.85 in 2023.
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Chuba Hubbard has led the Panthers in carries and yards in back-to-back games.
Granted, Hubbard out-carried Miles Sanders 6-1 on the Panthers' final two drives. Sanders didn’t see the field much once Carolina went down by 25 points at the top of the fourth quarter, but Bryce Young and the starting receivers were all still in the game, so it wasn’t the most garbage of times. What’s even more important is that the more we see of the two backs, the more it becomes clear who should be seeing the most touches. Hubbard is averaging .38 rush yards over expected per carry with a 40 percent success rate. Sanders is at -.72 with a 23 percent success rate.
Justin Fields set a season-high in designed rush attempts.
Luke Getsy dialed up five designed runs for Fields versus the Commanders, two more than he had seen in any other game this year. Fields also had the benefit of play-action on the second-highest rate of his throws in Week 5. The only time he threw on play-action more was in Week 4. Fields and the Bears have played a pair of dreadful defenses over the past two weeks, but the offense has also been tailored to his strengths in a way that didn’t exist in the first three weeks.
Joe Mixon led all running backs in expected fantasy points (30.1).
This is per Hayden Wink’s expected half-PPR points model.
Week 5 RB Fantasy Usage (No MNF)
1 Joe Mixon (30.1 exp half PPR)
2 David Montgomery (21.6)
3 Travis Etienne (20.7)
4 Alvin Kamara (20.2)
5 Zack Moss (19.4)
6 Breece Hall (19.1)
7 Christian McCaffrey (17.8)
8 D'Andre Swift (17.9)
9 Isiah Pacheco (12.8)
10 Derrick Henry (12.6)— Hayden Winks (@HaydenWinks) October 9, 2023
To no one’s surprise, any model trying to predict fantasy points will tell you that seeing three carries at the opponent’s one-yard line will normally result in a lot of fantasy points. Mixon saw an additional three attempts inside the 10 and two more totes inside the 20.
The Cowboys have run 83 plays while within a touchdown of their opponent.
This is the lowest number of plays within a touchdown of the opponent in the league. There seems to be no limit to the number of weird games the Cowboys can play in. Their closest game was a 12-point loss to the Cardinals. The average point differential of their games has been 27.8. Cooper Rush has closed out a majority of their contests. I expect the fantasy output of their players to normalize as the team’s games get less absurd.
Jaleel McLaughlin saw 56 percent of the Broncos’ carries and earned a 14 percent target share.
Among running backs with at least 20 attempts, McLaughlin ranks second in the league in rate of carries of 10 or more yards and first in missed tackles forced per attempt. He has also excelled as a receiver, posting 1.5 yards per route run.
David Montgomery ranks second in the NFL in carries per game.
Somehow, Zack Moss is the only running back averaging more totes. Montgomery is also top-five in rushing yards and touchdowns per week. He leads the NFL in carries inside the five while playing in just three and a half games.
Since Week 2, Jordan Love has thrown two touchdowns and five interceptions.
Love has posted a -.16 EPA per dropback and -6.4 percent completion rate over expected over that three-game stretch. He threw for six touchdowns and no interceptions over the first two games. Love appears to have fully regressed into a below-replacement-level quarterback. Like it was for Zach Wilson, a date with the Broncos will be the true test of how low things can go for Love.
Dameon Pierce is one of two running backs with more than 90 touches and just one touchdown.
Pierce’s lack of touchdowns comes down to some bad luck and an underwhelming number of goal line carries. He is top-15 in the NFL in red zone attempts. Only three players ahead of him on the list have fewer than two scores. However, he ranks lower in carries inside the five and has seen fewer goal line attempts than Patrick Mahomes and Latavius Murray.
Josh Downs has averaged 7.7 targets per game when Gardner Minshew plays more than four snaps.
Minshew has taken at least two-thirds of the Colts’ offensive snaps three times this year. In those three games, Downs has averaged six catches for 64 yards. In two games with Anthony Richardson as the primary quarterback, his numbers fell to 2.5 catches for 32 yards.
Tank Bigsby hasn’t touched the ball more than three times in a game since Week 1.
Bigsby was lauded as an underrated receiver by his own coaching staff during the summer and many were speculating that he would take targets away from Travis Etienne. Instead, he is catch-less through five games. The one thing Bigsby has managed to do is earn a few red zone touches. He has four carries in the red zone to Etienne’s seven. Still, Etienne is dominating the opportunities in the Jacksonville backfield and will rank as a high-end RB1 going forward.
The Chiefs' best receivers by yards per route run are Rashee Rice (2.62) and Justin Watson (2.02).
The two wideouts rank 14th and 29th in the metric respectively. Both wideouts clocked their second-lowest route participation of the year in Week 5. With Skyy Moore and Marquez Valdes-Scantling earning the most routes each week while doing nothing with them, there is simply no fantasy value among the Chiefs’ receivers.
Jakobi Meyers is 12th in the NFL in targets per game.
Meyers is top-20 in target share and top-25 in red zone target share. Even though he shares the field with one of the league’s best No. 1 receivers, Meyers is seeing the ball enough to post fantasy WR2 numbers consistently.
Cooper Kupp earned a 35 percent target share in his first game back from his hamstring injury.
Kupp also earned 41 percent of the Rams’ air yards and half of the team’s red zone targets. The good news is that Kupp’s return affected Puka Nacua very little. Nacua earned a 32 percent target share and a 38 percent air yards share in Week 5. This is a two-man show with room for no one else.
Jaylen Waddle led the Dolphins in targets (10) and end zone targets (four).
Waddle could have had a massive day, but touchdown luck simply wasn’t on his side. He caught one of his four end zone looks. The other three looks were stopped by defenders including a tipped pass that was intercepted and returned 102 yards for a touchdown.
TO THE HOUSE
102 YARDS FOR JASON PINNOCK AND THE @Giants
: FOX pic.twitter.com/B2T9MymMHH— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) October 8, 2023
Waddle is still earning plenty of targets—many of which are high-value looks—in the best offense in the NFL. Don’t panic. He remains a top-15 wide receiver.
K.J. Osborn and T.J. Hockenson both set season-highs in targets per route run.
Osborn was targeted on 18 percent of his routes while Hockenson paced the team with a 23 percent target rate. Jordan Addison, on the other hand, set a season-high in route participation. The Vikings’ offense is going to take a massive hit without Justin Jefferson, but other players will be given opportunities to step up.
Rhamondre Stevenson set season-lows in carry share (44 percent) and route rate (45 percent).
It was another blowout for the Patriots, but Stevenson was on the field for the team’s final drive, so it’s not like he was missing out on touches because of the scoreboard. Stevenson is in committee on one of the worst offenses in football and his efficiency numbers are struggling. He will fall out of the RB2 ranks for Week 6.
Derek Carr set a season-high in completion percent over expected (+7.4 percent).
Carr ran a dink-and-dunk offense in Week 4 while dealing with a sprained AC joint. The results were pitiful as he averaged 3.4 yards per attempt. In Week 5, Carr started slinging it again with a 9.5 aDOT.
Carr completed a higher percentage of his passes despite the increased target depth. He appears to be in a much better place heading into Week 6.
Darren Waller is second among tight ends in air yards share (30 percent) and target share (22).
After doing next to nothing with his substantial role over the first four weeks, Waller finally broke out versus the Dolphins in Week 5. Waller caught eight passes for 86 yards. The former Raider finished the week tied for a league-high in targets among tight ends (11). Only Kyle Pitts saw more air yards. The Giants’ offense may be terrible, but it runs through Waller.
Breece Hall saw 76 percent of the Jets' rush attempts.
Robert Saleh said Hall’s snap count had been lifted heading into Week 5 and he wasn’t kidding. Hall saw 22 carries and ran for 177 yards and a touchdown.
YEAH, WE'RE THINKING @BREECEH IS BACK.#NYJvsDEN on CBS pic.twitter.com/c8VcYS2XKL
— New York Jets (@nyjets) October 8, 2023
He now ranks second in the NFL in rush yards over expected per carry. Dalvin Cook saw six carries in Week 5.
Dallas Goedert became the first tight end to reach 100 yards in the 2023 season.
This was the longest we have had to wait for a tight end to reach three digits in a game in 20 years. Goedert caught 8-of-9 targets for 117 yards and a touchdown. He had been struggling to produce yards after the catch through four weeks and hadn’t topped 50 total yards once. In Week 5, Goedert racked up 58 yards after the catch. He entered the week with 28 YAC on the entire season.
Pittsburgh Steelers
George Pickens has a 44 percent air yards share this year.
That number climbs to 48 percent when looking at games Diontae Johnson has missed. The Steelers’ offense has run through deep shots to Pickens without Johnson available. Pickens is second in the NFL in targets between 10 and 19 yards downfield.
San Francisco 49ers
George Kittle scored 39 percent of his season-long fantasy points in Week 5.
For those keeping score, 20 percent of his games came in Week 5. Kittle had been struggling to earn targets and produce yards on his ample number of routes through four weeks. The good news is that his 2.79 yards per route run in Week 5 were a season-high. The bad news is that he earned a target on 13 percent of his routes, which was actually below his season average. There will be more Kittle spike games, but the down weeks between those games may be hard to weather.
Tennessee Titans
Tyjae Spears has out-snapped Derrick Henry in 3-of-5 games this year.
All three of Spears’ snap victories have come in Tennessee losses. Henry has dominated in the Titans' two wins but is unable to get things going while playing from behind.
Henry has averaged 8.4 PPR points in the Titans' three losses this year and 21.5 points in their pair of wins. Things don't appear trending in the right direction for his team either. The Titans are likely to be underdogs in four of their next five games.
Tyjae Spears has out-snapped Derrick Henry in all 3 of Tennessee's losses this year. Of the Titans' next 5 games, how many are they going to be underdogs for?
vs. Baltimore (London) ✅
vs. Falcons ❌
at Steelers ✅
at Bucs ✅(?)
at Jaguars ✅— Kyle Dvorchak (@kyletweetshere) October 10, 2023
Washington Commanders
Logan Thomas is the TE6 by PPR points per game.
Thomas missed half of Washington’s Week 2 game versus Denver and is still in the top half of the TE1 rankings on a per-game basis. Thomas will likely fall outside of that ranking as the season wears on, but there are worse streaming options available for Week 6.
