Many people are familiar with the term “chasing the dragon.” It’s most common interpretation is simply smoking heroin. But according to Urban Dictionary, there’s a deeper meaning to this term. Imagine you get doped up on heroin for the first time and the high sends you to a euphoric, nirvana-like state where everything is beautiful and perfect and life makes complete sense. Soon the high wears off, so naturally you get cooked again seeking the same euphoric state, but this time it’s not quite the same. So you sell all your possessions and steal from your family in order to buy more and more drugs, attempting to return to nirvana. That’s chasing the dragon. Â
But what about Chasing the TDragon, what’s that? It’s when you own only Broncos, Patriots, Lions and Packers receivers so you’re forced to start Chase Claypool in week 5 and he goes off for 7 catches for 110 yards, 3 carries for 6 yards and his 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th touchdowns against the Eagles defense. So of course you start the Steelers rookie every week for the rest of year, searching for that same high while destroying your fantasy season. Now listen, I’m not saying don’t pick up Claypool, you should. Just don’t get caught Chasing the TDragon. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday for fantasy football:
CAR at ATL
D.J. Moore – 4 catches for 93 yards and his 1st touchdown. The best DJ since Jazzy Jeff. Just when you’re ready to write him off he reels you back in for moore. Pigskinonator knew this was coming, ranking D.J. as it’s #12 wide receiver this week. Robby Anderson (8 catches for 112 yards, 1 carry for 3 yards), and his 13 targets, is still Teddy Bridgewater’s (27/37 for 313 yards and 2 touchdowns—he now has 6 passing touchdowns on the year) preferred option until further notice.
Mike Davis – 16 carries for 89 yards, 9 catches for 60 yards and his 3rd touchdown. Who needs Christian McCaffrey, right? Well probably those CMC owners who didn’t pick up Davis. Oops!
Todd Gurley – 14 carries for 121 yards, 4 catches for 29 yards and his 5th touchdown. The Toddfather sent the Panthers to sleep with the fishes. Not literally, or even figuratively, since they lost. But Gurley’s producing like an RB1 right now, hopefully the impending coaching change doesn’t affect him. I don’t expect it will.
Calvin Ridley – 8 catches for 136 yards. Someone had to step up and not catch touchdowns from Matt Ryan (21/37 for 226 yards, 0 touchdowns and 1 interception) with Julio Jones (hamstring) out. Ridley has established himself as a WR1 and I don’t think it changes once Julio’s back to full health.
LV at KC
Josh Jacobs – 23 carries for 77 yards, 2 catches for 8 yards and his 4th and 5th touchdowns. One touchdown away from the Josh Jacobs Jinglehammer.
Henry Ruggs IIIÂ – 2 catches for 118 yards and his 1st career touchdown. I was skeptical of the speedster coming into the year but it appears Henry the Third may rule Vegas for years to come. There’s big upside with the boom or bust rookie, he’s worth adding in most formats.Â
Darren Waller – 5 catches for 48 yards and his 2nd touchdown. Drafting my players based on how they look shirtless has never failed me.
Patrick Mahomes – 22/43 for 340 yards, 6 carries for 21 yards, 2 passing touchdowns, 1 interception and his 2nd rushing touchdown—he now has 13 passing touchdowns on the year. Mahomie don’t play that. Mahomie don’t play that well against the Raiders this week. But Mahomes not playing that well is still better than most other QB’s best game.Â
Clyde Edwards-Helaire – 10 carries for 40 yards, 3 catches for 40 yards. The Clydesdale was more of a show pony in this one. The CEH buy-low window is wide open, use our free trade analyzer to formulate a winning deal.
Tyreek Hill – 3 catches for 78 yards, 3 carries for 15 yards and his 5th touchdown. Reek wasn’t left holding his manhood. He also caught a huge 60 yard TD early in the game that got called back due to offensive holding.Â
Travis Kelce – 8 catches for 108 yards and his 3rd touchdown. While Kittle’s banged up and Ertz stinks, Kelce keeps rolling along. The guy never misses a game and puts up WR1 numbers; what more do you want? A presidential candidate under 70? Don’t be ridiculous!
ARI at NYJ
Kyler Murray – 27/37 for 380 yards, 9 carries for 31 yards with his 8th passing touchdown, 5th rushing touchdown and an interception. Murray went Ghostbusters against the Jets defense, just like his cousin Bill. He’s now on pace for 947 rushing yards and 16 rushing touchdowns; not bad for a running back!
Kenyan Drake – 18 carries for 60 yards, 1 catch for 2 yards and his 2nd touchdown. Drake still has some work to do if he wants that Emmy nomination, but this is a start.
Chase Edmonds – 3 carries for 36 yards, 5 catches for 56 yards and his 3rd touchdown. Has been Chasing down Drake’s fantasy value the past few weeks and he may have surpassed The Kenyan in PPR leagues. Edmonds now has 18 receptions to Drake’s 6.Â
DeAndre Hopkins – 6 catches for 131 yards and his 2nd touchdown. Saw an interesting stat over the weekend: Hopkins’ 2017 – 2019 aDOT = 12.3 yards, 2020 aDOT = 6.9 yards. aDOT schmayDOT, DHop is a WR1 and Christian Kirk (5 catches for 78 yards) is back from the dead as he tied for the team high with 7 targets.
Le’Veon Bell – 13 carries for 60 yards, 1 catch for 7 yards. When the doctors told Le’Veon he was 100% healthy and cleared to return to the Jets lineup Bell responded, “Do I have to?” Still, he’s a low-end RB2 based on volume alone.
Jamison Crowder – 8 catches for 116 yards and his 2nd touchdown. Being stuck with the Jets is enough to drive anyone to drink but Jamison has managed to stay sober. Crowder’s a solid WR2 on a team with plenty of reason to throw each week.Â
PHI at PIT
Miles Sanders – 11 carries for 80 yards, 2 catches for 19 yards and his 2nd and 3rd touchdowns. Tough matchup against the elite Steelers’ run D but Miles sanded them down. 74 of those 80 yards did come on one carry, but it was one hell of a carry. I’ve been saying it for months, Sanders is a first rounder.
Travis Fulgham – 10 catches for 152 yards and his 2nd touchdown. The Eagles’ ragtag group of receivers put up some decent fantasy numbers as Greg Ward (4 catches for 26 yards and his 2nd touchdown) also found the endzone with Desean Jackson (hamstring), Jalen Reagor (thumb) and Alshon Jeffery (foot) all out. I’m not rushing out to grab Fulgham in shallower leagues yet but snatch him up in deeper leagues. It’s still Ward over Fulgham for me.
Zach Ertz – 1 catch for 6 yards. Has a total of 15 receiving yards over the past two weeks. That’s not a typo. Fifteen. One-Five. I’m not sure what to tell Ertz owners, I’m not a certified therapist.Â
James Conner – 15 carries for 44 yards, 3 catches for 19 yards and his 3rd touchdown. Man, this guy has been playing forever. I saw him beat Jon McEnroe at Wimbledon back in ’82.
Juju Smith-Schuster – 4 catches for 28 yards. OVER-RATED. I’ve said since the end of last year that I prefer Diontae Johnson (1 catch for -2 yards before leaving with a back injury) but I also said after week one that JuJu might be the third best receiver on his team. Claypool showed a little taste of what I was talking about against the Eagles.Â
LAR at WAS
Darrell Henderson – 15 carries for 38 yards, 3 catches for 30 yards and his 3rd and 4th touchdowns. Cam Akers (9 carries for 61 yards) returned from his rib injury and ripped off a 46 yard run but only turned in 15 yards on his other 8 carries against a solid Football Team run defense. Those Football Teamers can really stop the run. Expect a committee moving forward. Henderson likely earned the lead role while Akers was out, at least for the next few weeks.
Robert Woods – 4 catches for 71 yards and his 3rd touchdown. Bobby Trees is putting together a nice season, but I seem to be in the minority who prefers Cooper Kupp (5 catches for 66 yards). Don’t get me wrong, they’re both boarding on must-start each and every week but Kupp has now out-targeted Woods 36-31 and he’s always been Jared Goff’s (21/30 for 309 yards, 2 passing touchdowns, 1 rushing touchdown and 1 interception) favorite red zone target.
Antonio Gibson – 11 carries for 27 yards, 5 catches for 24 yards. Not a great game script for Gibby, but on the plus side, no running back saw more than one carry. If the Football Team offense ever starts clicking (don’t hold your breath) then Gibson could explode.
Terry McLaurin – 3 catches for 26 yards. F1 sputtered against Jalen Ramsey and the, uh, Rams. Get this guy an oil change and maybe a tire rotation. He should be just fine once he gets familiar with whoever the Football Team quarterback is. Speaking of which, it was great to see Alex Smith (9/17 for 37 yards) back out there.
CIN at BAL
Joe Burrow – 19/30 for 183 yards, 3 carries for 10 yards and an interceptions. A forgettable day for the rookie as the Ravens defense had Joe burrowing his head in the turf after 7 sacks. Welcome to the highs and lows of owning a rookie QB.
Joe Mixon – 24 carries for 59 yards, 6 catches for 35 yards. Too bad he can’t play the Jaguars defense every week. In the preseason I got heckled for ranking Mixon too low (#17 overall) in my 2020 fantasy football rankings. Now I’m just getting heckled for my ridiculous hair cut. I’d like to see you do better with a beard trimmer!Â
Tyler Boyd – 4 catches for 42 yards. You’d think down 27-0 the Bengals receivers would be primed for garbage stats but they forgot the stats part of that equation. Rookie Tee Higgins (4 catches for 62 yards) continued to impress with a team high 8 targets, he should be added everywhere with WR2 upside.Â
A.J. Green – 0 catches on 1 target. Green pulled a Vontae Davis and retired at halftime. Alright he didn’t actually retire but he might as well have. Feel free to drop him if he’s still on your team.
Lamar Jackson – 19/37 for 180 yards, 2 carries for 3 yards, 2 passing touchdowns and 1 interception—he now has 9 passing touchdowns on the season. Granted there wasn’t much need for Jackson to run in this contest but it’s clear the Ravens we’re blowing smoke when they said he’d run less this year. He’s on pace for 131 carries for 761 yards and 3 touchdowns on the ground and it’s tough to keep LJax in the group of elite fantasy QBs with this type of usage. Â
Mark Ingram – 11 carries for 57 yards. The Ravens backfield has become a fantasy wasteland. My pick is still rookie J.K. Dobbins (1 carry for 34 yards, 3 catches for 21 yards) who’s been incredibly efficient with his touches, but it’s taking the patience of Mother Teresa to stick with him.
Marquise Brown – 6 catches for 77 yards and his 1st touchdown. Hollywood finally found the Walk of Fame in week 5. The buy-low window has now closed, consider Brown an upside WR2 moving forward.
Mark Andrews – 6 catches for 56 yards and his 5th touchdown. Mandrews keeps giving the stiff arm to the regression fairies; after his 10 touchdowns last year he’s on pace for 16 touchdowns this year and has solidified himself in the group of elite tight ends.Â
JAC at HOU
James Robinson – 13 carries for 48 yards, 5 catches for 22 yards. Sometimes I marvel at the accuracy of Pigskinonator which projected Robinson for 22.6 receiving yards. Sure, the pig-bot also gave JRob 0.66 touchdowns this week but the bot sees all futures and multiverses. Sign up for a free 7-day trial now!
D.J. Chark – 3 catches for 16 yards. The Boof has been fading Chark all year in his rest of season top 80 wide receivers column. Don’t doubt The Boof, the guy will boof anything.
David Johnson – 17 carries for 96 yards, 2 catches for 7 yards. There was some concern that Duke Johnson (3 carries for 8 yards, 1 catch for 11 yards) would take more of the rushing work with Bill O’Brien out as CEO of Johnson and Johnson, but Romeo Cronell seems content with the status quo in the run game. DJ remains a solid RB2, but don’t forget the injury risk is real.
Will Fuller – 4 catches for 58 yards and his 3rd touchdown. That’s three straight games with touchdowns for Fuller, but the surprise in this one was Brandin Cooks (8 catches for 161 yards and his 1st touchdown). Cooks may have been dropped after his lackluster start to the season including a goose egg last week; add him up if that’s the case. Deshaun Watson (25/35 for 359 yards, 2 carries for 25 yards, 3 touchdowns and 2 interceptions—now has 9 passing touchdowns on the year) and the entire Texans offense could get a boost with a competent coach at the helm.
MIA at SF
Myles Gaskin – 16 carries for 57 yards, 5 catches for 34 yards and his 1st touchdown. Very exciting game for us Gaskin owners as he got the goal line work which was the only thing missing thru 4 games. He’s suddenly looking like a locked in RB2.Â
Preston Williams – 4 catches for 106 yards and his 1st touchdown. Free P-Willy! Finally! Make sure Saucy Boi is owned in your league.
DeVante Parker – 2 catches for 50 yards and his 2nd touchdown. Not bad, but he’s no Saucy Boi. There’s only one Saucy Boi.
Mike Gesicki – 5 catches for 91 yards. 70 of those yards came on one catch, but that’s the kind of game breaking athleticism Gesicki brings to North Cuba.
Raheem Mostert – 11 carries for 90 yards, 3 catches for 29 yards in his return. I’m the big dummy who bought the narrative that Mostert would be eased in; I started Jerick McKinnon (1 carry for 0 yards, 2 catches for 5 yards) over him. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me, uhhhh, won’t get fooled again.
George Kittle – 4 catches for 44 yards. Not a lot of good things happened in the 9ers passing game as youngsters Deebo Samuel (2 catches for 19 yards) and Brandon Aiyuk (3 catches for 44 yards) turned 8 and 6 targets respectively into and an OBJ fantasy. Kendrick Bourne (2 catches for 30 yards and his 1st touchdown) was the only 49er to find the promised land.
IND at CLE
Jonathan Taylor – 12 carries for 57 yards, 2 catches for 17 yards and his 3rd touchdown. Strange to think you might be able to buy a bell cow rookie running back at a discount, but I think that’s exactly the case in most leagues. Odds are he puts up first round fantasy value rest of season and he doesn’t seem to be valued at that level based on trade questions I’ve been getting.
T.Y. Hilton – 6 catches for 69 yards. Nice. Saw 10 targets which is also nice. What’s not nice is that Philip Rivers (21/33 for 243 yards, 0 touchdowns and 2 interceptions) spent all off season training for the shot put event in the postponed 2020 Tokyo Games.
Kareem Hunt – 20 carries for 72 yards, 3 catches for 21 yards and his 6th touchdown. The Hunt for Kareem October is on. He’s a locked in RB1 while Nick Chubb (knee) is out, D’Ernest Johnson (8 carries for 32 yards, 1 catch for 4 yards) doesn’t look like much of a threat.
Odell Beckham Jr. – 5 catches for 58 yards. I’m starting to run out of poop jokes. Just kidding, kind of like Odell when he said he was tired of being pooped on.
NYG at DAL
Dak Prescott – 14/21 for 166 yards, 2 carries for 7 yards, 1 catch for 11 yards and his 1st receiving touchdown. A moment of silence for Dak’s ankle. ———- It wasn’t pretty and unfortunately we won’t be seeing Mr. Prescott again this year and maybe not even until mid season 2021. In his absence Andy Dalton (9/11 for 111 yards) suddenly becomes very intriguing with the best arsenal of weapons in the entire league. Dalton could be a sneaky QB1 rest of season.
Ezekiel Elliott – 19 carries for 91 yards, 1 catch for 14 yards and his 5th and 6th touchdowns. With Dak out you have to wonder whether the Cowboys feed Zeke even more than normal. Fingers crossed he doesn’t put on too much weight.
Amari Cooper – 2 catches for 23 yards. Bobby warned you that James Bradberry would be shadowing Cooper in his weekly Shadow Coverage Report column. In the wake of the Dak injury, all Cowboys receivers should be downgraded a bit including both Michael Gallup (4 catches for 73 yards) and impressive rookie CeeDee Lamb (8 catches for 124 yards)
Devonta Freeman – 17 carries for 60 yards, 2 catches for 27 yards and his 1st touchdown. Why would a free man go to the New York Giants? Something isn’t adding up here. Don’t get too excited about this performance, remember the Cowboys defense is beyond bad.
Darius Slayton – 8 catches for 129 yards. Saw more than double the targets of the next closest Giants receiver and the chemistry with Daniel Jones (20/33 for 222 yards with 0 touchdowns) is obvious. But chemistry with one of the worst quarterbacks in the league isn’t going to take you very far.Â
MIN at SEA
Dalvin Cook – 17 carries for 65 yards, 5 catches for 24 yards and his 7th touchdown. We expected Russ to cook in this one, but it was The Chef who came into Seattle and took over the kitchen up until his 3rd quarter groin injury. It was also a kick to the groin of many fantasy owners who needed just a couple more points from Dalvin. Alexander Mattison (20 carries for 112 yards, 3 catches for 24 yards) looked great in relief and should already have been rostered by Cook owners. If he wasn’t then be ready to pay up, groin injuries tend to linger.
Adam Thielen – 9 catches for 80 yards and his 5th and 6th touchdowns. I’ve said since early summer that Thielen is a great first half player and a prime candidate to sell high after a hot start. Now’s a good time to start shopping him. Don’t sell him for Corey Davis’s used surgical mask, but see what you can get.
Russell Wilson – 20/32 for 217 yards, 5 carries for 58 yards, 3 passing touchdowns and 1 interception—he now has 19 passing touchdowns on the season. Even when he doesn’t have his Wusthof knives, Russ still cooks up some tasty fantasy stats. He’s on pace for 60 passing touchdowns, 5 more than Peyton Manning’s record 55 TDs set in 2013.
Chris Carson – 8 carries for 52 yards, 6 catches for 27 yards and his 6th touchdown. Has there ever been so many players with 6+ touchdowns thru 5 games? This pandemic defense is great for fantasy football and terrible for fantasy football recap writers. As for Carson, he’s a solid RB1 as long as he stays healthy.Â
D.K. Metcalf – 6 catches for 93 yards and his 4th and 5th touchdowns. I wonder if Tyler Lockett (4 catches for 44 yards) gets jealous when Russ talks about himself and D.K. as Montana and Rice. Lockett is now lobbying for a Steve Young, Jerry Rice, Terrell Owens dynamic.
