Fantasy Football Market Report: Week 9

Which players are on the rise and who’s taking a midseason tumble?

In many sports, the arrival of the trade deadline is something that is looked forward to as the also-rans in any given season are given the opportunity to build for the future by unloading talented veterans to a contending team.

It typically isn’t that way in the NFL, where there are always rumors of big names trading places, but it rarely happens. The trade deadline is 4 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Nov. 2, and there will be a flurry of rumors of players moving to new teams, but too often the rumors don’t become reality.

For fantasy owners, this can be an important time if you have any of the players on the trade block. Owners of Zach Ertz are elated that he finally got out of Philly after months of contention and goes to Arizona – a high-octane offense in need of a playmaking tight end.

Some players have been disappointments, mired on fantasy benches or a “silk hat on a pig” type (see Brandin Cooks). The deadline will come and go as it always does, but will this year be the year where things are different and there are a flurry of moves? Don’t hold your breath.

Here is the Week 9 Fantasy Football Market Report:

Fantasy Football Risers

Michael Carter, RB, New York Jets

It’s difficult to overly excited about anyone from the Jets, but Carter has started making a case for himself to be considered. He is the Jets’ leading rusher and has more than twice as many carries as anyone on the team. He has double-digit attempts in each of the last four games and has scored three touchdowns in that span. He is also the team’s leading receiver with 26 receptions – 17 of those (and 162 of his 226 receiving yards) coming in the last two games. He has emerged as a strong daily fantasy player and is making it more difficult to keep out of league lineups.

Michael Pittman Jr., WR, Indianapolis Colts

It has taken a while for Pittman and Carson Wentz to get on the same page, but Indy started winning when Pittman became the primary focus of the passing offense. In his last four games, Pittman has scored four touchdowns and posted yardage of 86, 89 and 105. He has 594 receiving yards and nobody else on the team has more than 265. He has quietly asserted himself as the go-to receiver in this offense and is still being viewed as a fantasy bargain who has to prove it. That won’t last much longer. He’s already proved it.

Chuba Hubbard, RB, Carolina Panthers

From the day Christian McCaffrey went down in Week 3, the majority of the rushing workload has fallen on Hubbard. In his last four games, he has had a pair of games with 24 rushing attempts (gaining 101 and 82 yards, respectively) and has scored two touchdowns in the last three games. With McCaffrey expected to return, Hubbard’s value may plummet, but he has earned the opportunity to be more than just a McCaffrey handcuff. If CMC goes down again (he missed time due to three injuries last year), you could have a fantasy starter on your hands.

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Dallas Goedert, TE, Philadelphia Eagles

This may be a little more projecting that anything based on a breakout performance, but what has always held Goedert down was sharing time with Zach Ertz. When Ertz was injured in the past is when Goedert posted his most impressive numbers. In the five games he played prior to the Ertz trade, he was averaging three catches and 43 yards. In the two games since the trade, he has nine catches for 142 yards, including his biggest yardage games of the season (70 and 72 yards). While he isn’t a lock to be a fantasy stud suddenly, his trajectory is pointing strongly up with his primary competition out of the picture.

D’Ernest Johnson, RB, Cleveland Browns

Browns fans didn’t know what to make of their run game when both Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt were out in Week 7 against Denver. The only person who seemed unfazed was head coach Kevin Stefanski, who said Johnson could get the job done. All he did in his first start was rush 22 times for 146 yards and a touchdown. Chubb came back last week and Johnson’s production took a dip. He rushed just four times for 22 yards in Cleveland’s loss to Pittsburgh, but he scored another touchdown. With Hunt expected to be out four to six weeks, Johnson is going to have the opportunity to fill his role in the offense, which could mean double-digit carries and chances in the screen game. He’s a reach, but one that could be dividends for a team in need if he does fill Hunt’s role in the offense.

Fantasy Football Fallers

Jared Goff, QB, Detroit Lions

Early in the season, it looked as though the Matthew Stafford might not be as lopsided as it appeared. In his first two games (against San Francisco and Green Bay), Goff threw for 584 yards and five touchdowns. It’s been all downhill in the six games since. He has thrown for less than 225 yards (with his team behind in most if not all of them for considerable stretches of time) four times and has just three TD passes in those six games – including just one in his last four games. He brings nothing as a rusher and has brought next to nothing as a passer. The Lions are in line for the No. 1 overall pick as the lone winless team in the league and that player will likely be Goff’s replacement.

Jonnu Smith, TE, New England Patriots

The Patriots made a big splash in free agency by signing the two hottest tight ends – Smith and Hunter Henry. Both got off to brutal starts, but Henry has turned his fantasy season around, scoring four touchdowns in his last five games. The same can’t be said for Smith. Through eight games, he is averaging less than 24 receiving yards a game and has just one touchdown catch. For a guy who blew up for the Titans last year just in time to make millions, he has been unqualified bust for the Patriots and has rendered himself almost unplayable.

Buffalo Bills running backs

This one has been frustrating for owners of both Devin Singletary and Zack Moss. Mos has scattered four touchdowns in the first half of the season, but is averaging just 3.7 yards a carries with his worst two weekly averages coming in the last two weeks against teams that have struggled to stop the run (Tennessee and Miami). Singletary is averaging 5.1 yards a carry but hasn’t had more rushes than Moss since Week 2 and has a total of 18 carries in the last three games. With neither being a threat as receivers, it has become impossible to play either of them and expect production.

Keenan Allen, WR, Los Angeles Chargers

Allen is one of the rare players who historically has himself on both the Risers and Fallers list in the same season. The problem with Allen is consistency from a fantasy perspective. In seven games, he has scored just two touchdowns (one on Sunday), but after hitting 100 yards in each of his first two games, he hasn’t topped 77 yards in the five games since and has three games with 50 or fewer receiving yards in three of those. It’s impossible to recommend benching Allen, because he came to fantasy rosters to start every week and you get the feeling he’s going to have another one of his three- or four-game streaks where he plays lights out and scores a handful of touchdowns. It’s what Allen does.

Eric Ebron, TE, Pittsburgh Steelers

The best thing that happened to fantasy owners with Ebron is that he was inactive Sunday with a hamstring injury and couldn’t be played. That’s the good news. The bad news is that a player who has posted some monster weeks over the years is a complete afterthought in this offense. Fellow Steelers tight end Pat Freiermuth had as many receptions (seven) in Pittsburgh’s Week 7 game with Seattle than Ebron has had in the six games he has played. The numbers are staggeringly bad – seven catches for 47 yards and no touchdowns. The Steelers may try to move him at the trade deadline, but with those numbers who wants him?

Fantasy Football Market Report: Week 4

Which direction are some of your fantasy players trending?

It’s never too early to be a step ahead of the rest of the owners in your fantasy football leagues. We’re heading into Week 4, which is the penultimate week before fantasy teams start crumbling and having their bench strength tested.

Thanks to an 18-week, 17-game schedule, bye weeks start in Week 6 and extend all the way to Week 14 – a record nine weeks with anywhere between two and six teams sidelined.

While some fantasy owners made a point to keep an eye on the bye weeks on the night of their auction or draft — in most cases, that was a month and a half ago. A lot of has changed on rosters since.

The NFL is going to get rid of 10 teams for a week in Weeks 6 and 7 – the Falcons, Saints, 49ers and Jets in Week 6 and Bills, Cowboys, Chargers, Vikings, Steelers and Jaguars in Week 7. It’s an annual grind, but one not all owners in a fantasy league are aware of at this point.

You have two tasks as you head into Week 4, accomplished by quietly tipping away from the herd unnoticed. First is make sure you haven’t morphed into a roster that can get killed during a week or two of bye week season. Wins are hard enough to come by. You don’t give them away.

Second is to look at other teams that have owners who are too heavily invested in the 10 teams that are opening up the bye week period. Now is the time to see if you can swing a deal to “help them out” of their predicament.

A lot of times better positioning yourself comes with advanced scouting. Nobody else is talking about bye weeks now. By the time Week 4 is over, it’s going to be all the chatter heading into Week 5, because once Week 6 comes, there won’t be a week without byes until the weekend before Christmas.

Do your homework while others are oblivious.

Here is the Week 4 Fantasy Football Market Report:

Fantasy Football Risers

WR Ja’Marr Chase, Cincinnati Bengals

Chase was a controversial franchise pick when OT Penei Sewell was on the board to be a decade-long anchor for Chase’s former college QB, Joe Burrow. However, through three games, he is making it impossible not to start him in fantasy lineups. He isn’t running the route trees of Tyler Boyd or Tee Higgins but is averaging 20 yards per receptions and has four touchdown catches – including on passes of 34, 42 and 50 yards. He is kind of a one-trick pony, but it’s a great trick. He can only get better as more routes are designed to make him the first option instead of the streaking deep threat. If you don’t have him, make a trade to get him. If you have him, the return offers may be crazy.

Kirk Cousins, QB, Minnesota Vikings

I’ve never been a fan of Cousins. He has tended to choke on the biggest stages at critical times of games and seasons. Every year, it’s difficult to endorse him as a full-time fantasy starter, but he has become a more polished field general. This season, he has thrown for 918 yards with eight touchdowns and a passer rating of 118.3. If you want a consistent option, Cousins is your guy. He has gone 17 straight games with a passer rating of 90.0 or above – only one player in NFL history under the passer rating standard has done that. That would be Peyton Manning (23). Name every great QB in the history of the game and, aside from Peyton, nobody other than Cousins can make that claim.

WR Brandin Cooks, Houston Texans

The Texans are a hot mess, but they are forcing the ball to Cooks – their only viable offensive weapon. Everyone has suffered without Deshaun Watson in Houston’s offense. Cooks dominating the team’s target share (35.6 percent) is on par with that of Green Bay Packers WR Davante Adams (35.8) over the first three weeks of the season. The Texans have thrown 90 passes – 32 to Cooks. They have completed 58 – 23 of them to Cooks. Nobody has more than nine targets or six receptions. It’s difficult to endorse anyone from the Texans. Given these numbers, some defenses may make it a mission to bracket him, but his value at the moment is as high as it may ever be.

QB Sam Darnold, Carolina Panthers

I will be the first to admit that I’ve never been a “Darnold guy.” I thought he was overhyped coming into the draft and the Jets’ willingness to cut bait with him lent to that argument. However, in his first three games in Carolina, he has accounted for two touchdowns in each outing (three passing and three rushing), topping 300 passing yards twice and reaching 279 in the other. While he’s not getting a hearty endorsement, with bye week season coming up, it’s nice to have a replacement – even if just for a week – who has shown consistency in scoring points.

WR Cooper Kupp, Los Angeles Rams

Typically we don’t put players who are obvious weekly fantasy starters, unless they’re playing so light’s out for your team, someone might come to you with a crazy trade offer to include him. Kupp is having that kind of start with Matthew Stafford. Through three games, Kupp has been targeted 33 times, caught 25 passes for 367 yards and scored five touchdowns. Robert Woods, on the other hand, has numbers of 19-11-124-1 through three games. Kupp has three more receptions than the next two Rams combined and has almost 100 more receiving yards than the next two teammates combined. It’s hard to imagine many fantasy owners with Kupp aren’t 3-0, because this is rarely seen dominance, especially with a new quarterback.

Fantasy Football Fallers

New England Patriots tight ends

Through three games, if a fantasy receiver had 20 catches for 184 yards and no touchdowns, he would be no great shakes. Unfortunately, those are the combined numbers of Hunter Henry and Jonnu Smith (10-109-0 for Henry, 10-74-0 for Smith). Then there is the matter of their contracts (three years, $37.4 million for Henry, four years, $50 million for Smith). You kind of get the idea the front office thought Cam Newton was going to the be the QB when free agency opened. While both were likely brought onto fantasy rosters to be regular starters, they’re killing owners who have them.

WR Stefon Diggs, Buffalo Bills

Diggs was the league leader in targets, receptions and yards in the league last year. This season, he has 19 receptions for 191 yards – never hitting 70 in any game – and one touchdown. He’s second on the team in receptions, third in receiving yards, and third in touchdowns on his own team, much less the league. With Josh Allen at the wheel, the big days will come along. But, for now, if fantasy owners have options, it won’t take long before they start looking elsewhere, if they have viable options and Diggs has an unfavorable matchup.

RB Jonathan Taylor, Indianapolis Colts

Taylor was an investment in most leagues to be RB1 and a cornerstone player. Granted, his first three games were against Seattle, the Rams and Tennessee – all playoff teams last year – but still, the numbers are pretty brutal. He hasn’t hit 65 rushing yards in a game, his number of carries has dropped in each contest (17-15-10), he has just eight receptions (six in Week 1 and two since), and he hasn’t scored a touchdown. For a Colts team that hasn’t won yet and has its season swirling like a toilet bowl, those forced to keep riding Taylor can’t wait for the Texans and Jags to show up.

TE Kyle Pitts, Atlanta Falcons

The fourth overall pick was expected to be an impact player right out of the gate. While he has flashed the ability to be a downfield threat, the reality is that he is fourth on the team in receptions – behind retread Cordarrelle Patterson for receptions, yards and touchdowns. In three games, he has caught just 11 passes for 139 yards and no TDs – with 35 or fewer yards in two of them. He’s going to be an immense talent, but, for now, he’s an anchor tied to a fantasy owner’s leg, and the Falcons don’t have the look of an offensive juggernaut anytime soon.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers running backs

Both Leonard Fournette and Ronald Jones were viewed not necessarily as starters, because they were slated to split time. But few could have expected how little they would have to split up. Fournette is the lead dog by default but has just 24 carries for 92 yards. Jones has just 15 carries for 52 yards. The only rushing touchdowns the Bucs have are from Tom Brady and Chris Godwin. Brady has thrown the ball almost six times as often as Fournette and Jones have run the ball. At this point, both are too poisonous to play, unless you’re forced into it.

Jonnu Smith agrees to join the New England Patriots

Quick fantasy football reaction to Jonnu Smith signing with the Patriots.

The tight end position has been deeper than usual over the past few seasons, and one of the better options has a new team. Former Tennessee Titans tight end Jonnu Smith has emerged in the past few seasons as a regular fantasy football contributor and now takes his game to the New England Patriots.

In 2018 and ’19, Smith played a larger role off of the bench when starter Delanie Walker was injured (missed 24 of 32 games). The valuable experience helped Smith take over as Tennessee’s top guy at his position in 2020 and post a career highs in receptions (41), yards (448) and touchdowns (8) in 15 games played.

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Smith turns 26 in August and enters a semi-rebuilding phase with New England. Quarterback Cam Newton returns as the presumed QB1 of this offense, a system that has been favorable for tight ends in past seasons. It’s not an easy one to learn, though, so the heady Smith will be hitting the books to get up to speed. Known for his love of X’s and O’s, the Florida International product has a prime opportunity to excel in an offense yearning for playmakers.

In two years without Rob Gronkowski, the Patriots have not generated more than 200 yards out of any one tight end of the duration of a season. Newton found success with the position in Carolina, but blocking will be a major factor in Smith’s role — an area where he plays better than his 6-foot-3, 248-pound frame suggests.

Injuries are a slightly elevated concern after he missed time in three of his four pro seasons.

Fantasy football takeaway

New England has made moves to improve its offensive line on the edge and still has to address the expected loss of guard Joe Thuney. The offense has a capable rushing attack and will rely heavily on controlling the clock with the ground game.

Translation: Play-action passing success. Smith is athletic and has a downfield presence the team found great success targeting with Gronk. Block-and-release, tight end screens, and vertical seam routes should be staples in Smith’s role.

Wide receiver remains a massive need for the Patriots to fill, and it’s such a deep free-agent class, in addition to there being several quality rookies … it won’t take long to find someone of consequence to help take pressure from the incoming Smith.

The former Titan is a midrange starter in fantasy football for the 2021 season, and he’s likely to come off the board near the midpoint of drafts.