We Can Be Heroes For Just One Day
If you are a fan of offensive explosions and massive fantasy point totals then Week Five of the 2019 NFL Season was right down your alley. Nine players scored at least 30 or more fantasy points, with four of them crossing the 40-point threshold. Will Fuller and Cooper Kupp lead the way for the Wide Receiver, while Aaron Jones just ran for another touchdown as I am writing this. If you were lucky enough to have some of these guys on your team this week, I am pretty sure you are walking away a fantasy winner after Week 5, if you didn’t, just believe the fantasy football universe has a way of evening things out and your turn is coming soon.
(As always, all scores discussed in this article use a ½ PPR scoring structure)
Heroes:
Deshaun is back in Desaddle!!
If we are nothing else here at Fantasy In Frames, we are fair, Deshaun Watson was not good last week against the Carolina Panthers and he rightly earned his spot on the Villains list. However, for as bad as he was last week, he was that much better this week against the Atlanta Falcons. He continued with his up and down season by having an absolutely stellar on Sunday. Watson completed 28 passes for an eye-popping 426 yards, finding the end zone 5 TIMES while rushing for a season high 47 yards. His 41 fantasy points was also a season high and his best point output since Week 1 against the Saints. With a combination of stronger than usual offensive line play and receivers that were able to get open quickly, Watson was able to amass the stats that he did this week; according to Next Gen Stats, he was able to get the ball out of his hands at an average of 2.43 seconds per pass attempt, with the ball traveling 7.3 yards per completion. With teams that currently rank 13th, 15th, 22nd and 18th against the pass coming up over the next four weeks, Watson has a chance to break his season long trend of inconsistent starts. However, until then, just as a word of warning Watson now has had good starts in Weeks 1, 3 and 5 and bad starts in Weeks 2 and 4. With Week 6 coming up, a superstitious person would be a little scared, but I personally don’t believe in superstition very much so I am confident Watson will make all his fantasy teams very happy this week.
Russell Wilson
By most every measure, Russell Wilson is one of the greatest QBs of this era. While he will not regularly light up the scoreboard with 400 yard passing game as he did in week two against the Saints, what makes Wilson such a great Quarterback and one of the best fantasy football QBs is the efficiency in which he puts up fantasy points. He only threw for 268 yards last week against the Rams, but what makes him a fantasy monster is that he coupled that with four touchdown passes and 32 yards on the ground good enough for 30 fantasy points. Wilson has 12 touchdown passes through 5 weeks and has yet to throw an interception. This follows a season where he finished tied with Matt Ryan for third in the NFL with a 5 to 1 touchdown to interception ratio, trailing only Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees. Currently Wilson is the #1 ranked QB in the NFL in average fantasy points per game at 25.3 and has been the hero of all QB heroes so far in 2019.
You think there is only one Aaron in Green Bay…Mr. Jones would like you to hold his beer
Aaron Jones is one of the strangest fantasy football anomalies’ in the NFL. If one was to look at his stats this season, they could come to the conclusion that he is not having a particularly good start this season. However, we here at Fantasy In Frames look at a player’s stats through the fantasy football lens, and because of that we see a guy who is getting into the endzone A LOT. With the exception of game one this season, Jones has put up four straight solid, if not spectacular fantasy football scoring performances. And no performance has matched and probably will match what he put up against Dallas this past Sunday. Jones carried the ball 19 times for 107 yards and four touchdowns; he also caught another seven passes for 75 yards for an astronomical 45.7 fantasy point. He was the #1 RB in the NFL in Week five and could continue his torrid pace this week against the Detroit Lions who are 20th in the rushing yards allowed per game.
Getting a Fuller Picture of the Rest of the Season
The Houston Texans offense was so good this week that I felt compelled to write about two of their star players, Deshaun Watson had a great game so he deserves special mention, but welcome to the land of heroes Mr. Will Fuller. Oh, did Will have himself a game against the Falcons this past Sunday!! Watson targeted Fuller 16 times, he caught 14 of those targets for 217 yards and three touchdowns his 46.7 fantasy points put him as the highest scoring wide receiver this weekend, and may have firmly established him as one of the best #2 wide receivers in the NFL, games like the one Fuller had are few and far between for even the best receivers, but he is definitely a player that should be on most rosters and should be starting more often as more bye weeks come around, with the occasional flex start depending on the matchup.
This Kupp Continues to Runneth Over…. EVERYONE!!
I am not sure if this is a controversial statement or not, but the best wide receiver in the NFL through the first five weeks of the season has been Cooper Kupp of the Los Angeles Rams. As a fantasy wide receiver, he has been virtually everything you want. He leads the NFL in targets, he is second in receptions, fourth in yards and tied for third in TDs. He has reached 100 yards receiving in four straight games and has caught his four touchdowns in the last three games. Last week against the Seahawks, he was targeted a ridiculous 17 times, catching nine of those targets for 117 yards and a touchdown. He is averaging 19.4 fantasy points per game this season and that includes the first game of the years where he only scored 8 point. However, even in that game he was targeted 10 times and had seven receptions, so he was still a good choice in ½ and full PPR leagues. With San Francisco and their second ranked defense coming in this week, it looks to be a tougher matchup, but the volume of looks that Kupp has been receiving alone is good enough to warrant a no-brainer start for this up and coming superstar.
Honorable Heroes
Kirk Cousins (QB) – Minnesota Vikings – 22/27 306 yards, 2 TDs, 20.5 Fantasy Points
Josh Jacobs (RB) – Oakland Raiders – 26 carries 123 yards, 2 TDs, 3 receptions 20 yards, 27.8 Fantasy Points
Phillip Lindsay (RB) – Denver Broncos – 15 carries 114 yards, 1 TD, 4 receptions 33 yards, 22.7 Fantasy Points
Christian McCaffrey (RB) – Carolina Panthers – 19 carries 176 yards, 2 TDs, 6 receptions 61 yards, 1 TD, 44.7 Fantasy Points
Amari Cooper (WR) – Dallas Cowboys – 14 targets, 11 receptions 226 yards, 1 TD, 34.1 Fantasy Points
Michael Thomas (WR) – New Orleans Saints – 13 targets, 11 receptions 182 yards, 2 TDs, 35.7 Fantasy Points
DJ Chark (WR) – Jacksonville Jaguars – 11 targets, 8 receptions 164 yards, 2 TD, 32.4 Fantasy Points
Jaylon Smith (LB) – Dallas Cowboys – 9 tackles, 1 sack, 18 Fantasy Points
Brian Burns (LB) – Carolina Panthers – 3 tackles, 1 sack, 1 forced fumble, 1 fumble recovery, 17.8 fantasy points
Villains
For a Quarterback, that Lamar Jackson looked more like a pretty good Running Back
During one’s maturation process you are going to run into games where nothing looks right and if you have any self-awareness at all, you can honestly say that you really stunk out the joint. Week five against the Pittsburgh Steelers will not be a game that goes into Lamar Jackson’s personal high light films. Jackson completed 19 of 28 pass attempts for only 161 yards and 1 touchdown, he would also throw three interceptions. While he did rush for 70 yards, saving some fantasy value, his overall performance this week was by far his worst this season. With the Cincinnati Bengals coming into Baltimore this weekend, I don’t foresee Jackson being on this list again after week six.
A-Aron might need an intervention from the State Farm agent of his
Aaron Rodgers is five weeks into what may potentially be the worst non-injury season of his career. But, for his 422 yard, 2 TD (25 fantasy point) performance in Week four vs. the Eagles, Rodgers would be hovering around the Joe Flacco/Case Keenum level of fantasy relevance. And that is not a place that you should ever see someone whose preseason ADP made him the NFL’s QB3. In last week’s game vs. the Cowboys, he may have ceded a lot of his potential offensive output to Aaron Jones who, as discussed earlier, had a massive game. Rodgers only throw for 238 yards and no touchdown, for a paltry 9 points. For those who drafted Rodgers in the spot that they did, he is definitely going to have to pick up the scoring some more or not only will he find himself on this Villains list a lot more this season, but his draft stock will plummet next season.
Kansas City decided to play Sunday without using a running back??
Ok, so they did technically have LeSean McCoy and Damien Williams on the field last Sunday night against the Colts, but by all accounts, they may as well been in the stands selling popcorn. The entirety of the Kansas City rushing attack combined for only 14 carries and an anemic 36 yards, and that includes McCoy who had 0 rushes for 0 yards. For a team that has put together a couple good weeks of running performances, particularly McCoy who scored a combined 37 fantasy points the last two weeks, this was a very disappointing game.
Dishonorable Villains
Phillip Rivers (QB) – Los Angeles Chargers – 32/48 211 yards, 2 interceptions, 4.1 Fantasy Points
Julio Jones (WR) – Atlanta Falcons – 3 receptions 42 yards, 5.7 Fantasy Points/Week 4 – 4 receptions 52 yards, 7.3 Fantasy Points
Odell Beckham Jr (WR) – Cleveland Browns – 1 Touchdown reception this season
WK3 – 9 targets, 6 receptions, 56 yards, 8.6 Fantasy Points
WK4 – 7 targets, 2 receptions, 20 yards, 3 Fantasy Points
WK5 – 6 targets, 2 receptions, 27 yards, 4 Fantasy Points
Keenan Allen (WR) – Los Angeles Chargers – 4 receptions 18 yards, 3.8 Fantasy Points/Week 4 – 5 receptions 48 yards, 7.3 Fantasy Points