#Trendspotting: Week 4

Photo: USA Today Sports

READER'S GUIDE

Some key items are below:

• All references to fantasy points assume DraftKings scoring rules unless otherwise specified.
• All stats reference the full 2021 season unless otherwise specified.
• All fantasy points rankings are on a per-game basis to account for bye weeks unless otherwise specified.

This week, we'll discuss the following topics:

• Tweets of the Week
• Playing Offense on Easy Mode
• Concentrated Injuries Creating Opportunities

With just three weeks of data at our disposal for this season, please exercise caution. At this point in the season, the trends identified below are mostly trends to keep an eye on and monitor for a short while before acting on them after we get about four or five weeks of data to analyze.

Best of luck and as always feel free to reach out to me here on Twitter with any comments regarding this article or questions regarding anything related to fantasy football

Tweets of the Week

Per @nflfastR, the Cincinnati Bengals rank dead last in pass rate over expectation at -10%.

— Sam Hoppen (@SamHoppen) September 27, 2021

Commentary and Action Items:

• Through three weeks, the Cincinnati Bengals are one of the most surprising teams in the NFL. Most would have expected the side's 2-1 start to come on the back of its retooled passing attack. Despite Joe Burrow's return at quarterback and the team's deep receiving corps, Cincinnati has been the most run-heavy team in the NFL after accounting for the down, distance, time, and score of each play. Do not press the panic button on the Cincinnati passing game's startling lack of volume just yet, but keep an eye on this in the coming weeks. One should expect that an attack featuring a recent number-one overall pick at quarterback to go along with one first-round and two second-round wide receivers will air the ball out. However, given Zac Taylor's roots as a Sean McVay assistant, there is a chance he shares one of his mentor's penchant for running the football.
  
  
• Keep a watchful eye on Cincinnati's run/pass splits in the upcoming weeks. While a soft Week 4 matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars should lend itself to another run-heavy attack, stiffer competition in subsequent weeks should provide better insight into what to expect throughout the season.

All of Saquon Barkley's key usage metrics have risen in three-straight games...

Snaps: 48% > 84% > 88%
Routes: 17 > 32 > 37
Touches: 11 > 15 > 22

— Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield) September 28, 2021

Commentary and Action Items:

• As Graham Barfield notes, Saquon Barkley is officially back. Barkley was eased into action in Week 1 against the Broncos, and although he shouldered a heavy workload on a short week in Week 2 against the Washington Football Team, it was still far less than he typically saw before he tore his ACL last year. Then, after about 10 days of rest, Barkley was back to his original role as the Giants' bell-cow running back in Week 3 against the Atlanta Falcons. As many expected, Barkley is once again looking the part of a top-ten fantasy running back. Although the Giants' offensive line is a below-average unit, Barkley's large role in the passing attack will keep his fantasy value high despite potentially lackluster rushing efficiency. While any buy-low window on Barkley is likely closed by now, it may be worth inquiring whether he is priced as the top-end running back that he will likely end up as in season-long formats.

On dropbacks when Justin Fields was *not* pressured:

4-13, 48 yards, 1 scramble

— Kevin Cole (@KevinColePFF) September 28, 2021

Commentary and Action Items:

• This offseason, many pondered what Chicago's offense could look like this season with potentially Fields at the helm and Matt Nagy presumably coaching for his job. Unfortunately, the 2021 Bears look a lot like the 2020 Bears on offense in the worst way. Last weekend, much of Justin Fields's debut was spent trying to evade Cleveland pass-rushers, which spells trouble for even the most experienced quarterbacks. Clean pockets, on the other hand, are where the NFL's best passers thrive. Justin Fields's numbers from a clean pocket in his first NFL start are very worrying, not for his prospects as an NFL quarterback down the line, but for the Chicago Bears' prospects of turning things around this season and fielding any semblance of a quality scoring attack. Throughout the first two games, many fans and analysts hoped Andy Dalton was at fault for Chicago's offensive struggles. However, with 60 minutes of horrific football on tape with Justin Fields running the show, it is clear that the issues run much deeper for this side. Keep expectations for Chicago's passing attack low until further notice, as serious changes are needed for this unit to turn into anything more than a firmly below-average offense.

Playing Offense on Easy Mode

There are a few cheat codes in the modern NFL to make life as an NFL quarterback much easier. The two easiest and most notable of them are pre-snap motion and play action. Let's take a look at which offensive coordinators are making life easy for their gunslingers and which are leaving food on the table in the passing game.

Teams that have used the least amount of pre-snap motion this year:#Eagles#Giants#Steelers#Bills #Cardinals

— Eric Eager 📊🏈 (@PFF_Eric) September 28, 2021

Commentary and Action Items:

• Here, Eric Eager notes the bottom five offenses in pre-snap motion rate in the NFL. These five offenses are missing out on one of the easiest low-hanging fruits in the NFL and making life unnecessarily difficult for their quarterbacks. As with everything we examine at this point in the season, we must exercise caution due to the modest three-game sample of data we have at our disposal.
  
  
• In Philadelphia, Nick Sirriani's newly-imported offense has yielded unimpressive results on the whole through three weeks. Despite a 34-point outing in Week 1, the Eagles have managed just 25 offensive points total across the last two weeks. Philadelphia's offense looks exceptionally vanilla right now, with almost nothing happening over the middle of the field. There is a chance that Sirriani is waiting to complicate the offense by adding in pre-snap motion and more complex route combinations post-snap, so we should not overreact to Philadelphia's presence on this list just yet. However, if nothing changes on this front by midseason, Sirriani will fall well short of tapping into this offense's full potential.
  
  
• Another spot to not sound any alarms about is in Buffalo. Brian Daboll, Bills' offensive coordinator, has proven over the better part of the last two seasons to be one of the NFL's sharpest and most innovative play-callers. He has earned the benefit of the doubt here, especially on an analytically-inclined coaching staff like Buffalo's.
  
  
• On the other end of the spectrum, two teams jump off the page in Eric Eager's tweet; the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers. Both offenses have proven incapable of grabbing the low-hanging fruit to improve their respective passing attacks in recent seasons. Unsurprisingly, both passing attacks are struggling this season, ranking 20th or worse in net yards per pass attempt. Despite bolstering their receiving corps this offseason, the New York Giants are still miles away from having an above-average passing attack with Jason Garrett calling the plays. Down in Pittsburgh, things are looking exceptionally bleak for the Steelers through the air. Father time has fully caught up to Ben Roethlisberger, and he looks like a bottom-ten quarterback in the league right now. Roethlisberger's deteriorating quarterback play, combined with a banged-up receiving corps and uninspiring play-calling, is a recipe for disaster for the Steelers on offense. Temper expectations for both the New York Giants' and Pittsburgh Steelers' passing attacks this season due to mediocre quarterback play to go along with a frustrating lack of creative play-calling.

Concentrated Injuries Creating Opportunities

Injuries are starting to pile up around the NFL, pushing some unexpected names into prominent and very fantasy-relevant roles. Let's dive into the position groups that have been bitten the hardest by the injury bug and what that could mean for fantasy football managers in the coming weeks.

New York Giants Wide Receivers

Sterling Shepard and Darius Slayton both left last week's game against the Atlanta Falcons early due to injury.

Commentary and Action Items:

• In the absence of these established pass-catchers, a few players stepped into larger roles in New York's passing attack. First, rookie Kadarius Toney ran nearly three times more routes in Week 3 than he did in either Week 1 or Week 2. Although Toney only saw three targets in Week 3, if he assumes more of an every-down role with Shepard or Slayton sidelined in Week 4, he is worth considering as a very cheap and contrarian tournament wide receiver option in DFS.
• Elsewhere, recent waiver wire acquisition Collin Johnson ran 22 routes, commanded 7 targets and hauled in 5 receptions after Sterling Shepard and Darius Slayton both went down with injuries. Although Johnson should not be expected to keep up this near-3:1 route-to-target ratio, he is an interesting player to keep an eye on and consider in DFS tournaments. Johnson's outlook is not quite as bright as his Week 3 stats might suggest because his role is likely less stable than Toney's due to the massive difference in capital spent by the Giants to acquire each player.
• As mentioned in the previous section of this article, New York's offensive play-calling is exceptionally poor, which will limit the overall efficiency of the team's passing attack. Despite disappointing efficiency projections for this offense, Kadarius Toney and Collin Johnson are both worth considering thanks to the bottom-dollar price that each player can be rostered or acquired at.

Denver Broncos Wide Receivers

After placing Jerry Jeudy on the IR due to a Week 1 ankle injury, the Broncos also lost K.J. Hamler for the season in Week 3 to a torn ACL.

Commentary and Action Items:

• Losing K.J. Hamler and Jerry Jeudy to injury instantly turns Denver's receiving corps from a strength into a weakness for this offense. Fortunately, Courtland Sutton's return to action earlier this season, after missing last season with a torn ACL of his own, should help keep this passing attack afloat.
• Denver's roster lacks any obvious replacement option to slot into the starting lineup and rise to a fantasy-relevant level. Alternatively, the targets that otherwise would have gone Hamler's way are likely to be redistributed to Denver's more established receiving options. Expect Courtland Sutton, Noah Fant, and the team's running backs to see a slight uptick in target share and fantasy value in the coming weeks while Denver restructures its aerial attack.

Tennessee Titans Wide Receivers

A.J. Brown sustained a hamstring injury last weekend that will likely sideline him for a few weeks, and Julio Jones missed most of the second half last week with an apparent leg injury that could keep him out of action in Week 4.

Commentary and Action Items:

• This week, the Tennessee Titans remain approximately seven-point favorites over the New York Jets despite this injury news that could derail the team's typical gameplan through the air. Last weekend, after A.J. Brown went down with his injury, Nick Westbrook-Ikhine emerged as the team's next-man-up on the outside. Westbrook-Ikhine, a second-year player from Indiana, was used sparingly last season, but he stepped up for the Titans last week by hauling in all 4 of his targets for 53 yards and 1 touchdown against the Indianapolis Colts. Consider Nick Westbrook-Ikhine one of the strongest bargain bin receiving options on the Week 3 main slate of games.
• Aside from Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, Chester Rogers is the other player primed for an increased role in Tennessee's passing attack. Rogers already had a stable role as the Titans' primary slot receiver, but he was rarely targeted when on the field alongside Julio Jones and A.J. Brown. Chester Rogers is also worth considering as a salary-saving wide receiver option on DraftKings, where he is priced at just $3,300 this weekend.