Tag: Saquon Barkley fantasy football

Fantasy football: Philadelphia Eagles to sign Saquon Barkley in free agency

Barkley jumps from one AFC East roster to another in free agency.

The New York Giants were not expected to be able to retain Saquon Barkley‘s services. While the deal cannot be official until Wednesday afternoon, we now know he’ll play his first professional game as a member of a new team after agreeing to sign with the Philadelphia Eagles.

This comes shortly after Philly lost last year’s leading rusher, D’Andre Swift, to the Chicago Bears in free agency. The running back carousel continues to spin, and the Eagles are a great landing spot for Barkley to shine. Much like Swift, he’s a dual-threat option as a capable rusher and elite receiving outlet from the backfield.

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Swift produced RB19 fantasy results last season in PPR scoring, tallying 1,263 total yards and six offensive scores on 278 utilizations over 16 contests. Provided Barkley — whose well-documented injury history is a factor to consider — can play 16-plus games, that same output is easily within his reach. The biggest concern for a healthy Barkley will be Jalen Hurts stealing carries inside of the 5-yard line and rubbing him of scoring opportunities.

Fantasy football outlook

As with any season in which Barkley is in your draft sights, accepting an elevated risk of injury absence is required. Once that is out of the way, the price of admission will be somewhere between the 10th to 20th overall picks in most PPR settings. Barkley should have no problem generating RB1 results over a full slate.

Fantasy football: 2023 NFL free agency roundup

NFL free agency will drastically help reshape the fantasy football landscape as the new league year begins.

Now that NFL free agency is upon us, we’ll run through the fantasy football outlooks for trades, re-signings, midrange players, and tag recipients.

This analysis will be updated as players sign/re-sign in free agency, so be sure to check back regularly.

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Fantasy Football Market Report: Week 2

The most important risers and fallers entering Week 2.

It is amazing how an injury to one player can impact numerous fantasy football rosters. On Sunday night of Week 1, one such injury changed the landscape of the NFC East in general and the Dallas Cowboys in particular.

It has become common practice in the NFL for a team to save money by having a journeyman backup and pray their starter doesn’t get injured. For the Cowboys and QB Dak Prescott, that prayer went unanswered.

Prescott had surgery Monday to repair his throwing thumb with a six- to eight-week timetable for his return.

There were questions surrounding the fantasy stock of Cowboys players before Prescott went down after the team traded Amari Cooper and lost Michael Gallup and James Washington to injury.

Now, everyone’s value on the team comes into question. If the organization decides to go with backup Cooper Rush, who is a backup for a reason, what is CeeDee Lamb’s value? If defenses don’t have to respect the pass, what does that do to the value of Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard in the run game?

Even the Cowboys kicker is rendered moot.

It’s difficult to believe that one player can make that much of a difference to so many others, but the Cowboys may be dead in the water one game into the season – much to the delight of fans who don’t like the self-proclaimed America’s Team. For fantasy owners, the loss could have devastating implications.

Here is the Week 2 Fantasy Football Market Report.

Is it time to draft Saquon Barkley as a top running back again?

Going as RB12, how much higher should Barkley be going in fantasy drafts?

Back in 2018, New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley amassed 2,028 total yards and 15 touchdowns en route to being named the AP’s Offensive Rookie of the Year. That feels like an awfully long time ago now. A high-ankle sprain cost him three games during his sophomore campaign, but it was the torn ACL he suffered in Week 2 of 2020 that may have permanently altered his career trajectory.

Barkley managed to return for the season opener last year, but he averaged just 2.6 yards per carry in Week 1, which marked the first of six times in 2021 that he’d post fewer than 3.5 YPC in a game. He seemed to be running a bit more effectively as the calendar turned to October, but a sprained ankle on Oct. 10 put him on the shelf for more than a month.

Upon his return Barkley was used judiciously, topping 20 touches in a game just once — that came in Week 16 against the Chicago Bears when he ran for a season-best 102 yards (his lone outing of more than 65 yards), though it’s worth noting that came in 26-point loss where the team only allowed then-quarterback Mike Glennon to throw 11 times, so he was running against soft fronts.

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Much has changed since that miserable January afternoon, including the hiring of new head coach Brian Daboll, who spent the previous four seasons running the Buffalo Bills’ potent offense and oversaw the development of quarterback Josh Allen. On paper, he should be a marked improvement over outgoing offensive coordinator Jason Garrett, though despite coaching upgrades there are still myriad question marks on the field.

Chief among them are the development of Daniel Jones, who has done little in his first three seasons to suggest he’s a legit QB1 at this level, and the health of Barkley, the one-time explosive back that’ll be nearly two years removed from his knee injury when the 2022 season kicks off on Sept. 11.

At this stage, the level of concern with Barkley must be high. He’s battled injuries in three of his four NFL campaigns, and he barely even flashed his pre-injury form in 203 combined touches last season — to that end, the Penn State product didn’t have a run of more than 13 yards over the final five games, and on those rare instances where he’d break one off it wasn’t sustained (e.g., in Week 2 he had a 41-yard run against Washington and finished the day with 57 yards on 13 carries).

Fantasy football outlook

Daboll’s system may be best known most recently for passing success in Buffalo, but this same offensive design produced top-11 ground attacks six of eight seasons under his guidance. Five of those years resulted in no fewer than the sixth-most rushing attempts.

Arguably the biggest thing working in Barkley’s favor is the lack of depth behind him, meaning the ground game should sink or swim with No. 26. At a minimum, opportunity equals value. To his credit, he has been dynamic in the offseason and is finally healthy.

While he feels overvalued as a No. 1 with an ADP of RB12, Barkley should be given every chance to produce at that level. Whether he’s still capable is unclear, and that’s what makes him such a risky selection in the early rounds. Given the overall volatility at the position, his receiving skills, and a drastic upgrade in the coaching department, we can’t argue if you wish to take the plunge.

Fantasy football players on the rebound for 2022

Which fantasy football weapons are poised to rebound in 2022?

Every season, several proven players regress and even fall off of the fantasy football map due to injury, demotion, a poor system fit, or another unforeseen calamity. Players of the fake game understandably tend to be of the, “What has he done for me lately?” mindset and may underrate some proven options coming off a bad year.

Heading into the 2022 season, we’ll explore which players are most likely to bounce back from a down year in 2021. The players are ordered from least to most important in relation to their potential fantasy returns.

Be sure to sign up for The Huddle to gain the needed edge on your competition. In this space last year, we correctly called bounce-back performances from the likes of Dak Prescott, Austin Ekeler, Deebo Samuel, and Matthew Stafford to help create winning rosters.

Fantasy football players on the rebound for 2022

Fantasy football team previews: NFC East

A fantasy football snapshot of each team in the NFC East.

The 2022 fantasy football draft season is starting to heat up now that we’ve gone through the height of free agency and all of the chosen rookies have been assigned to their professional home cities.

The landscape has changed a great deal for many franchises after a whirlwind offseason, and our divisional preview series will help you stay on top of all of the changes to date.

AFC divisional previews

East | North | South | West

NFC divisional previews

East | North | South | West

Fantasy Football Market Report: Week 13

Fantasy football risers and fallers as we enter the penultimate playoff push.

Injuries are always a part of any NFL season, but when you look at the running backs who were ranked highest heading into auctions and drafts prior to the start of the season, it just goes to show why RBs maintain their fantasy value – they’re an endangered species.

The list is impressive and growing with those who will be out in coming weeks. It’s staggering.

Derrick Henry has missed four games and counting. Christian McCaffrey has missed five games and left Sunday’s game, only to be placed on season-ending IR. Dalvin Cook has missed two games and left Sunday’s game. He’s out at least two more. Alvin Kamara has missed three games. Saquon Barkley has missed four games. Nick Chubb has missed three games. Josh Jacobs has missed two games. Clyde Edwards-Helaire has missed five games. Aaron Jones has missed one game and parts of three. Chris Carson has missed six games. J.K. Dobbins has missed the entire season. Miles Sanders has missed three games. David Montgomery has missed four games. James Robinson has missed one game and parts of two others. Raheem Mostert has missed 10 games. Darrell Henderson has missed one game. Kareem Hunt has missed five games.

Considering fantasy owners get heartburn when their star players are on their bye weeks, missing time at this rate for a critical position has likely broken a lot of teams – both fantasy owners and NFL franchises.

Here is the Week 13 Fantasy Market Report:

Fantasy Football Risers

WR Kendrick Bourne, New England Patriots

While his numbers don’t jump off the page as a receiver, when you split them out between home and road production, the contrast is stark. He has scored five touchdowns – all at home. He has five games with 60 or more receiving yards – all at home. While he has just one game with more than five receptions, he has showed that he can be a valuable fantasy contributor when playing at Gillette Stadium, and his numbers all year have borne that out.

TE Rob Gronkowski, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Many fantasy owners will forget that two weeks into the 2021 season, Gronk stood alone as the leading scorer in the NFL with four touchdown catches. That was good Gronk. Then came bad Gronk. Late in the Week 3 game against the Los Angeles Rams, he went down with an injury and didn’t have a reception in the next six games. In his two games since returning, he has reestablished himself as Tom Brady’s go-to target. He has been targeted 18 times, catching 13 passes for 194 yards and putting himself back into the discussion of the top fantasy tight ends in the game – just in time for a postseason run in defense of Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl championship.

RB Alexander Mattison, Minnesota Vikings

For those who didn’t have Mattison as a handcuff for Dalvin Cook, these could be heady days. Cook has a history of injury because of his punishing running style. In the last three games Cook has missed due to injury, Mattison has rushed 72 times for 320 yards, has caught 16 passes for 149 yards and scored three touchdowns. With Cook sidelined with a shoulder injury and free-falling Detroit and Pittsburgh next up on Minnesota’s schedule, Mattison could be one of the most valued running backs in the fantasy game.

TE Pat Freiermuth, Pittsburgh Steelers

At a time when game-changing tight ends are in short supply, fantasy owners scramble in hopes of tight ends that are used considerably in the red zone. Everyone is looking for the 2021 version of what Green Bay’s Robert Tonyan accomplished last year. That is becoming Freiermuth this season. While he only has one game with more than 45 receiving yards, in his last five games, he has caught five touchdown passes and has four or more receptions in each game. While not earth-shattering numbers, at a time when the tight end pool is relatively dry, these are numbers sent from heaven.

RB Joe Mixon, Cincinnati Bengals

Typically, we don’t put weekly fantasy starters on the risers list, but for most of his career, Mixon was a premium pick in fantasy drafts that was most likely to be benched for a better matchup due to long stretches without consistent production. In his first four seasons, he missed time due to injury in three of them and scored just 20 rushing touchdowns in 40 games. This season, he has scored 13 touchdowns (11 rushing, two receiving) and has scored two TDs in each of his last four games. With the Bengals staring down a trip to the playoffs, over his last two games against wild-card contenders (the Raiders and Steelers), he has rushed 58 times for 288 yards and four touchdowns. He’s lining up with Jonathan Taylor for fantasy MVP consideration.

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Fantasy Football Fallers

WRs Courtland Sutton and Jerry Jeudy, Denver Broncos

The Broncos have been snake-bitten when it has come to pairing up Jeudy and Sutton. Last year, it was Sutton, who played just one game before going down for the season. This year it was Jeudy, who was injured in Week 1 and missed the next seven games. The two have been playing together for the last month, and, in those four games, Jeudy has caught 18 passes for 181 yards and no touchdowns. In that same span, Sutton has caught seven passes for 95 yards and no TDs. Both players have a high ceiling to their talent, but neither is worth putting in a lineup as things currently stand, much less when the stakes are higher in December.

RB Saquon Barkley, New York Giants

Similar to McCaffrey, Barkley has been battling injuries the last two seasons and the results have been numbingly bad. Prior going down in Week 5, Barkley never had more than 57 rush yards in a 2021 game. While he managed to score three TDs in that span, he wasn’t putting together the type of huge numbers that were expected. He’s back and has taken over the lead back role, but he has just 19 carries for 65 yards, 10 receptions for just 44 yards and no touchdowns in those two games. At this point, it’s difficult for those who made a big investment in him to bench him out of fear he will be the Barkley of past vintage. In the end, most owners who invested in Barkley will have to sink or swim with him and, at the moment, they’re drowning.

WR T.Y. Hilton, Indianapolis Colts

I’ve never been a huge Hilton guy but had to respect the numbers he put up with Andrew Luck at the wheel. However, this season has been a disaster. He missed the first five games and has been inactive in two more. At least under those circumstances, he doesn’t hurt fantasy players. In the last four games he has played, he has caught just nine passes for 75 yards and one touchdowns. At a time where Michael Pittman has established himself as the No. 1 guy and four others have more receptions than Hilton in the games in which he has played, it seems about time to stick a fork in Hilton as fantasy commodity and move on.

RB Kenyan Drake, Las Vegas Raiders

It was curious on two fronts when Drake hit free agency last year – one that the Arizona Cardinals made no effort to re-sign him and second that the Raiders did. In 23 games with the Cards, Drake was close to dominant from the fantasy perspective, rushing for almost 1,600 yards and scoring 18 rushing touchdowns. His role with the Raiders has never been defined. He has played in every game and has more than eight carries just once and averaging less than six. He has more than 34 rush yards in just one game and when Josh Jacobs was down with an injury, Peyton Barber was the primary back. He has talent, but it isn’t being utilized in Las Vegas.

Fantasy Football Market Report: Week 3

Fantasy football risers and fallers entering Week 3.

People new to fantasy football often ask why running backs are the highest-paid in auctions and dominate the first round of every draft. It’s the same reason diamonds and gold are so expensive – they’re rare.

Running backs aren’t rare. Successful running backs are rare. Heading into Monday night’s game between the Lions and Packers, through two weeks of the 2021 season there were only 10 players who had rushed for 150 or more yards – and one of them was a quarterback (Lamar Jackson). On the flip side, 24 receivers had posted 150 or more yards and only one of them was a running back (Christian McCaffrey).

To make things even more pronounced, only one running back has accounted for more than 200 rushing yards (Derrick Henry). There are seven receivers with more than 200 receiving yards – and most if not all were available after a dozen running backs came off a draft board or broke a budget in an auction.

While quarterbacks and receivers are the ones who have the giant week that leads owners to victory, it’s having those few running backs capable of dominating that makes them so valuable.

It’s their rarity that makes them a commodity.

Here is the Week 3 Fantasy Football Market Report:

Fantasy football risers

RB Ty’Son Williams, Baltimore Ravens

When it comes to our “Risers” list, we typically look at players who are either available or undervalued. The Ravens’ run game is clearly dominated by Lamar Jackson, but the role of de facto running back seemingly is always up for grabs. Mark Ingram. Gus Edwards. Dobbins. They all got their shot. Latavius Murray was the odds-on choice to be the lead dog, but, through two games, Murray has 19 carries for 64 yards (3.4 a pop with a long of eight). Williams has 22 carries for 142 yards (6.5 per tote with a run of 20 or more in each game). The reason the mantle gets passed in this offense is that the Ravens go with the hot hand and, unless he gets injured, that’s going to be Williams moving forward.

TE Rob Gronkowski, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Two weeks through the season and the leading scorer in the NFL is Tommy Boy’s running buddy Gronk. He has scored four touchdowns in two games – all in the red zone. When Tom Brady gets near the goal line, guys like Mike Evans get the shine. But at the outer and middle edge of the red zone is when Gronk and their shorthand history with each other comes into play. If you own Gronk, his value will never be higher. There’s one ball in Tampa Bay and Brady has to spread it around. If Gronk stays healthy – a really big “if” – he can put himself back in the 2021 TE Mount Rushmore conversation with Kelce, Waller and Kittle. In tight end-mandatory leagues, he’s been a godsend. You can get “Kelce-style” return in a trade right now for one reason – Gronk has earned that respect.

WR Rondale Moore, Arizona Cardinals

Quick quiz for you. Who leads the Cardinals in targets with 13? Who leads them in receptions with 11? Who leads them in yards with 182? The answer to all of those is Moore – a second-round rookie slot speedster who has quickly earned not only the confidence of Kyler Murray but also of the coaching staff. In most leagues, he is considered a fourth receiver. That’s A.J. Green. He’s making a case that Christian Kirk is the No. 3 guy and he and DeAndre Hopkins are 1-2. He’s going to make more believers.

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QB Derek Carr, Las Vegas Raiders

Carr’s name never gets mentioned in the discussion of elite quarterbacks, but those who have had him as a backup or a QB1b in a tandem system know better – at least in fantasy terms. The Raiders aren’t shy about passing. Everyone knows that. But, they’re 2-0 in large part because Carr has thrown for 817 yards and four touchdowns. Keep in mind, these wins weren’t against the Jaguars and Texans. These were the Ravens and Steelers. If he is somehow still in a rotation, that has to stop, and he needs to be No. 1 and No. 1a, at worst.

WR Mike Williams, Los Angeles Chargers

Williams is no stranger to fantasy owners. He has been the Keenan McCardell of his era. He’s good for five or six passes for 60 or 70 yards and the occasional TD when pressed into a lineup. Last year in the first season paired with Justin Herbert, he was almost forgotten – catching 48 passes for 756 yards and five touchdowns. Those weren’t awful numbers, but they didn’t keep him in a fantasy lineup. In his first two games, Williams has 15 receptions for 173 yards and two touchdowns – about 30 percent of his 2020 numbers. Herbert has a new running buddy who requires acknowledgement.

Fantasy football fallers

RB Saquon Barkley, New York Giants

Numbers speak volumes in the NFL. Numbers scream volumes in fantasy football. Christian McCaffrey and Barkley were No. 1 and 2 picks in most fantasy drafts in 2020. Both went down early to significant injuries. McCaffrey has reclaimed his spot. Barkley? Not so much. Two games into his Saquon 2.0 version, he has 23 carries for 83 yards, three catches for 13 yards and 39 fewer rushing yards than his quarterback. Seeing as 41 of Saquon’s 83 rushing yards came on one play, this is a time for legitimate concern and quiet reflection. How many more dud weeks can you take if you’re counting on Barkley?

QB Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh Steelers

Roethlisberger is glacial, so rushing points are a happy accident. If you’re playing Big Ben, it’s for passing production. Two games in, that translates to 483 yards and two touchdowns – numbers that won’t win weekly head-to-head matchups against just about anybody. He’s obviously part of a two-QB plan for those who have him on their rosters, but, against both the Bills and Raiders – admittedly two quality teams – he hasn’t earned a spot in a lineup where he is the QB1b. Toss in news of a recent left pectoral injury, and he’s QB2 unarguably and cut-bait for the twitchy.

WR Allen Robinson, Chicago Bears

In many circles, Robinson was viewed as a WR1 if you were in a 12-player league – 10-player in some. The obvious question was with which quarterback is he going to be that guy? Through two games with both QBs, he has eight catches for 59 yards and a touchdown. He’s transformed from a WR1 to an opponent-based play. Who would have seen this coming? Everyone? Targeted 15 times. All contested. Some double-contested. Until someone else emerges as a legitimate threat, he keeps getting doubled.

TE Zach Ertz, Philadelphia Eagles

There was a time when, in tight end-mandatory leagues, if you had Ertz, you were talking tough. Now, you’re duck-and-cover. On a modest Eagles offense, he is seventh in targets and seventh in receptions. There was a time that those were league totals, not team totals. Four targets in two games. Smells like a draft night gamble turned waiver wire if you want him. You can have him.

RB Jonathan Taylor, Indianapolis Colts

Taylor was a guy that, if you were in auctions, bidding wars at times got a little out of hand. He was a hill to die on for some auctioneers. It hasn’t been a lack of opportunities with 32 carries for 107 yards and no TDs. And that was with seven in the box. Now there should be nine – eight at a minimum. Not ideal with a QB with two bad ankles.