Some of these might be obvious as we come out of a week with no teams on byes. Some big performances are noteworthy and garner the title of “Trending Up.” And some concerning trends have a few big names moving downward as we head into Week 9.
Three Up
RB Gus Edwards, Baltimore Ravens
With four touchdowns in the last two weeks, Gus Edwards is clearly trending up. But his usage is what is especially exciting. He's eclipsed 50% of the offensive snaps in four of the last five games. In the previous two weeks, his 36 opportunities are more than double the rest of the backfield combined (16). He's seen 9-of-11 backfield red-zone touches over the last two weeks. He is pulling away with the lion's share of the work in an outstanding offense. After a season-ending injury to J.K. Dobbins, there was concern that the Ravens would rely on a frustrating committee. Justice Hill is the only other guy seeing consistent work, and it's hardly enough to impede Edwards' fantasy value. Going forward, Edwards is a plug-and-play RB2 with a safe floor.
WR DeAndre Hopkins, Tennessee Titans
Like Edwards, DeAndre Hopkins is coming off a three-touchdown performance, making him another obvious player trending up. And while his season-long output has been a massive disappointment so far, rookie quarterback Will Levis injected life into this putrid Titans offense. Levis outpaced Tannehill's completion percentage, yards per game, yards per attempt, and touchdown rate in his first career start. But his willingness to push the ball deep is what was especially exciting. Tannehill's average target depth of 9.9 wasn't conservative by any means, coming in as one of the league's highest. But Levis averaged 12.3 yards of average depth on his pass attempts. And that translated into big plays that this Titans' passing game has not seen much of this year. Hopkins likely peaked with his Week 8 performance, but it's great to see that the 31-year-old wideout can still take over games when the situation arises. Expect to see him get back on track as long as Levis starts.
TE Trey McBride, Arizona Cardinals
Zach Ertz was trending down in last week's article before his trip to IR. In the first game without Ertz, McBride proved he is ready to be a premier NFL tight end. The target share was there for Ertz, but his 1.9 yards after the catch per reception came in as the worst among all tight ends with at least ten targets. Meanwhile, McBride's 4.5 comes in as the 10th-highest. A young and athletic receiver, McBride has had no issue drawing targets this year. He is pulling a target on 23.9% of his routes run, the third-highest rate among all tight ends. Of course, a lack of routes run and snaps limited his ceiling. He set a season-high 58% snap share in Week 6, 53% in Week 7, and a whopping 82% in Week 8. In those games, he garnered five, six, and 14 targets, respectively. Last week, in his first game as a full-time starter, McBride caught 10-of-14 passes for 95 yards and a touchdown. It's difficult not to view McBride as a top-ten tight end for the remainder of the season. He's young and athletic, getting meaningful work, and making the best of it.
Three Down
QB Jordan Love, Green Bay Packers
Through the first few weeks of the season, it seemed like Jordan Love was leaving meat on the bone. Luke Musgrave was getting wide open deep, and Love missed him multiple times. “The chemistry will grow as the season progresses.” Once Christian Watson returned, it was the same story. He was getting behind defenses, and the two couldn't connect. Now, nearly halfway through Love's first season as a starter, we can identify a trend. He is not a good deep-ball thrower. But don't take my word for it. PFF has Love graded as the league's worst deep-ball thrower among every team's starting quarterback. If we open the sample to the 47 quarterbacks with ten-plus dropbacks on the year, only Tommy DeVito, Mitch Trubisky, Aidan O'Connell, Bailey Zappe, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, and Taylor Heinicke rank worse. Love has been above average in the short and intermediate parts of the field, but his inability to throw deep has allowed defenses to tighten up their pressure and showcase his flaws. After starting the year with three straight fantasy performances above 20 points, he's missed that mark in his last four. Since Week 4, he's been the per-game QB24, meaning he can be relegated back to your fantasy league's waiver wire.
RB Dameon Pierce, Houston Texans
His preseason usage got us bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but Dameon Pierce has essentially played himself out of a starting role. The Texans ran a committee between Pierce and Devin Singletary in Week 6. But coming out of a bye, there were hopes that Pierce would pull his elite workload back. He did not. Over the last two games, Pierce has the slight edge in carries, 25 to Singletary's 22. But Singletary is out-targeting him four to zero and has eight red-zone touches to Pierce's six. Pierce's efficiency profile from his rookie year wasn't great, but he had some exhilarating highlights. The hopes were that an increased workload could get him in a weekly rhythm. The Texans tried that for a few weeks, but it didn't work. Pierce has seen nearly every efficiency metric dip from last year: yards per attempt, yards before contact, yards after contact, broken tackle rate, breakaway run rate. He's been a liability in the run game and probably won't see the workload we dreamed of in the preseason. Suppose Singletary can maintain this 50/50 split with Pierce while gobbling up some high-value touches. In that case, there's a reasonable outcome where he is the more valuable fantasy running back over the remainder of the season.
WR Cooper Kupp, Los Angeles Rams
It's time to have the Cooper Kupp discussion. Two straight weeks of finishes outside the top 50 wide receivers is cause for concern. An injury to Matthew Stafford could derail Kupp's outlook even more. While it might be too early to panic, these two performances are the worst Kupp has ever put up in back-to-back games. The targets have been there, 17 in these two outings. But catching just six for 50 scoreless yards is not what we're used to seeing. Kupp has struggled to separate and is posting a career-high drop rate. He and rookie Puka Nacua are seeing nearly identical usage rates. Kupp returned from injury with a bang, logging 266 receiving yards in his first two games back. But it's impossible to ignore what we've seen recently. If Stafford can avoid serious injury, Kupp will still have value as a weekly WR1, albeit with a lower floor and ceiling than we've seen in years past. But if the Rams have to give the keys to Stetson Bennett, Kupp's season-long outlook could get extremely bleak.