Week 3 Fantasy Football Primer

How we doing everybody? 2-0 or 0-2 or somehow in one of those magical leagues that predicts the future and you’re 3-0? What if we just plotted out the rest of the season based on your current standing and roster? Let’s be fair — if you’re running a bunch of teams, a couple of them are bound to be tanked already. Lemme show you the picture of my FantasyCares Eliminator team that I drafted to support charity and Yahoo’s Andy Behrens — from the 16th spot sometime in June. Ugh, I’ve somehow managed to stay alive 2 consecutive weeks with this nightmare roster, mostly thanks to the weird scoring setup and large field (17 participants). Do you have any rosters that are worse than this? Let me know down in the comments! 

The RateMaster

Because Rudy apparently thinks “The Master Rater” isn’t a suitable name for a fantasy football tool (I mean, it’s a tool…), we now feature the “RateMaster.” Why does the Rate Master matter? (say that three times fast…) Because fantasy football production is correlated strongly with usage. Usage is defined as being on the field for snaps; if you are on the field, you have a chance to touch the ball. If you are on the sidelines, you will not be touching the ball. With me so far? Good. If you [points to you, you masterful fantasy football player you] want to find out who will be the next “big thing,” you often want to look at how often a player is on the field. In 2020, I wondered why Rudy had Chicago Bears’ running back David Montgomery at RB11 in his projections. Was Rudy drunk at the steering wheel of the good ship Razzball? Was he steering us to rocky shores? No! Rudy is a safe master and commander and always hands over the rudder of Razzball to DT or myself whenever he does his Captain Nemo cosplay day. Rudy was paying attention to David Montgomery’s snap share in 2019 — which often touched 70% of running back touches — and his recognition that David Montgomery took more offensive snaps than Dalvin Cook and Derrick Henry (!) in 2019. The result? Montgomery took even more snaps when Tarik Cohen fell to injury, resulting in an RB6 finish for a rusher who was considered passé by the industry. So! Do you want to investigate who the next big thing could be? Then hop on over to the RateMaster and get sorting.

Week 3 Smashers

Hey, before we go any further, let’s do a quick shoutout to our projectionist (that’s the correct word, right?) Rudy Gamble, who is slicing and dicing his way through the rankings so far this season:

this tweet won't be worth the inevitable jinx but I had rough starts the past two years (espec. at WR) so these @fantasypros and @fantasynation results are satisfying

(note: get access to all the underlying projections @razzball – https://t.co/37cGngZr67) pic.twitter.com/0R1v3JNrtn

— Rudy Gamble (@rudygamble) September 22, 2021

Quarterbacks

Derek Carr: Derek Carr is still available in 50% of Yahoo Leagues. He’s QB7 on the year and the past two years he’s finished as QB13 and QB14, respectively. Remember back to the glory days when I was ranking quarterbacks every week? “Everywhere!” you’d shout, “I just lost Goose McPimples to a lower quad infection, who should I fill in with?” And every single week I’d say, “Derek Carr.” I’d do the same over on Reddit and people would lose their mind and speak the glories of Drew Lock and Gardner Minshew (I’m not even joking — I had a cadre of Drew Lock fans attack me one week). ENYWHEY. Fast forward to now, where my Reddit therapy bills are mounting and I’m breaking down only once a week. Derek Carr is still your streamer of the week. Every week. You don’t like A-Rog going against the 49ers? Start Carr. Tannehill against the Colts worrying you? Derek Carr takes the wheel. Baker Mayfield suckered you in to drafting him again? Derek. Freaking. Carr. To the rescue! Don’t believe me? Then check out Hobbs’ Derek Carr fantasy profile. 

Running Backs

Jonathan Taylor: Donkey Teeth sleeps soundly next to his FatHead of Kerryon Johnson every night. It makes his wife really jealous. But! She knew how to get revenge on him: a Jonathan Taylor FatHead. Every morning Donkey Teeth wakes up and makes coffee for two — him and Kerryon — and has to walk by Jonathan Taylor’s visage juking into the bathroom. Mrs. Donk made sure to get the largest size FatHead available, the one where Taylor’s quads are the size of a small kitchen table. Donkey shouts out over his coffee, “Kerryon Johnson will be RB1 on the 49ers, my process was perfect!” But deep down, he knows that it’s Jonathan Taylor season. Carson Wentz has two busted ankles. Zach Pascal is the best receiver in Indy. Head coach Frank Reich needs to regain control of a team riddled with injuries, and his top weapon — that’s Jonathan Taylor, just so we’re clear — is locked and loaded. Running backs are often stochastic with their production — meaning they’ll have explosive weeks surrounded by very pedestrian weeks — so get excited for a JT breakout against a Tennessee DEF that’s middling in the league and tied for 24th in rushing TDs allowed. 

Receivers

Sterling Shepard: Still available in 25% of leagues. Are 25% of leagues abandoned already? Shep is a top 12 wide receiver this year and has been on the field for 94% of snaps and is garnering a ridiculous 28% target share for the Giants. Often times top receivers will have phases where they are the WR1 on a team before defenses switch targets. Because Kenny Golladay came into the picture, Shepard has had easier matchups, and Daniel Jones has taken legitimate steps to be a better QB. Evan Engram seems like he’ll return this week, which will open up the passing game even more (not that Kyle Rudolph failed in his pass-catching duties last week). With the Giants poised to take on the mediocre Atlanta Falcons DEF — which is bottom third in the league in passing yards and dead last in passing TDs allowed — we could see a huge week for Sterling Shepard. 

Maxx Williams: OK, this is me bypassing Jack Doyle being a top 10 TE on the Razzball scale and instead throwing some love to Double-X Maxx Attaxx. Maxx roughed up the Vikings last week for 7 catches and…I mean the performance came out of nowhere. It’s like you showed up to the Winger label showcase and the opening act Van Halen stole the show (RIP Eddie). Well, when defenses are busy covering Nuk and Rondale Moore and Christian Kirk and A.J. Green, you can throw to the tight end, right? OK, maybe. There are a lot of mouths to feed there in ARI, but Maxx is the benefactor of being on the field for 78% of his team’s snaps so far and has garnered a 12% target share, which could mean, “BUY BUY BUY” and not the N’Sync kind. 

Thursday Night Football

Carolina Panthers and Houston Texans…seriously, who came up with these Thursday Night Football matchups? That Week 1, I could kinda understand the Brady vs Dak matchup and the Cops/Robbers narrative, but it was a super risk by the NFL to hope that Dak was healthy. In Week 2, we got Daniel Jones and the New York Giants going against the Washington Football Team, which ended up being an entertaining game because neither team decided to play defense and instead it was just a shoot-out akin to an All-Star game. Or, I suppose in football you call it a Pro Bowl, right? Whatever. Daniel Jones rushing for 120 and Taylor “I was out of the league for 2 years” Heineke looking like the second coming of Brett Favre doesn’t get me hyped. What does get me hyped? [sigh] Sam Darnold and the Panthers taking on Davis Mills and the Houston Texans in primetime. Yeesh. 

The Panthers are favored to win this one by a touchdown, and we all know why:

Christian McCaffrey: You thought I was gonna write “Sam Darnold,” right? RIGHT? CMC is back and he’s favored to run over 100 yards. Seriously, when does that ever happen? DFS captain du jour CMC will be a 100% start in fantasy leagues. 

Sam Darnold: Samhain Jack O’Lantern Darnold is similarly favored to throw for nearly 270 yards, which could be reduced by gamescript. If the Panthers jump out to a lead and Davis Mills does a Zach Wilson impression with just handing the ball over, we could see a 20+ rush day for CMC and Darnold just does his Netflix and Chill. If Mills proves to be a capable passer, we could see the reinvented Darnold put up a big game. 

Brandin Cooks: Here’s your contrarian DFS captain. What if…what if Davis Mills is ready for the NFL? Mills — a third-round pick this year — was a highly touted prospect who played only 11 games for Stanford due to injury. Could we have a Carson Wentz-style success? Or a Mitchell Trubisky-style collapse? It’s simply…[waving hands] unpredictable [shimmering rainbows everywhere]. But whatever happens, the Texans’ gameplan will likely flow through Brandon Cooks, who is favored for 9 targets on the day by Rudy’s projections. Did you read 1,000 words ago when I told you how good Rudy was? I mean, the chance that Brandon Cooks outperforms CMC is like 5%, so don’t get excited. But, stranger things have happened [80s synth music plays]. 

What are you looking forward to in Week 3? Let me know down in the comments!