We find ourselves nearing the end of Week 2. Some over reactions this past week were warranted. Others? Not so much. Look even I got burned a bit by proclaiming the Jaguars were the best D/ST this year. To be completely honest, I still stand by that. But Kareem Hunt looks legit, and the Patriots are back on track (no surprise). There were a few takeaways from this Sunday, but first we start with an apology…

 

Mea Culpa to the Falcons

There were some serious concerns over the Falcons offense heading into the year. They didn’t look great in the preseason and they struggled in Week 1 against the Bears. But the team regressed positively back to being awesome on Sunday. They put up 34 points in the first three quarters and then took their foot off the gas late in the game and managed to win by 11 over Green Bay. Devonta Freeman looked great and scored twice! Go figure, he was playing on an artificial surface. So there were certainly over reactions on my part and the Falcons certainly did their part to quell my concerns. 

If there is one takeaway from a fantasy perspective it’s that the regression of Matt Ryan seems real. The Falcons can successfully run the ball and perhaps success early in the game may diminish Ryan’s output later in the game. In his first two games on the year he had 30 and 28 passing attempts. This game was supposed to be a shootout and he still only threw the ball 28 times. As mentioned in last week’s piece, Ryan threw for the second-most yards on the 17th-most pass attempts in 2016. So it was hard to believe he would sustain that success. In order for him to get to 600 pass attempts he would have to throw the ball about 39 times each game the rest of the way. That seems unlikely considering how well they run the ball.

 

The Cardinals Suck Without David Johnson

Glad we got the obvious out of the way because this team struggled against the Colts… Yeah, the COLTS. They put up just 16 points against the egregious Indy defense. Fake News? Nah, this is serious. A lot of folks were skeptical as to how the Cardinals would perform without David Johnson. Well, the answer is “not well.” It wasn’t until they fed Chris Johnson that they got things going. That should be the big takeaway from this game. Chris Johnson is the guy that fantasy owners should target. The offense was stagnant and unsuccessful through the first quarter and didn’t get things rolling until they started handing off to CJ late in the second quarter. You should target Chris Johnson this week as he had 11 carries on 44 rushing yards, which led the team. It’s likely still a committee going forward, but CJ2K, Kerwynn, and Ellington might see something like a 50-40-10 or 50-30-20 split in carries.

 

Trevor Siemian… Fantasy MVP?!

Everything was clicking for Denver on Sunday. The offensive line looked great though they may have lost Garrett Bolles for the season. But Denver still totaled 178 rushing yards, which allowed Trevor Siemian to get things going in the passing attack. He didn’t crack 250 passing yards, but he still threw four touchdowns and he now has six on the year. There was a lot of concern heading into the year as to who should be the QB for Denver and how the offense would look. Hell, even I was saying Paxton Lynch should be the starter, but Siemian is currently a great fantasy commodity. This is actually a guy I’d be okay targeting in 2-QB leagues. Denver has a tough stretch in the middle of the season where they have three straight road games against the Chargers, Chiefs, and then the Eagles. If he stumbles there you should try and target him because his value will be low and in the crucial Weeks of 14, 15, and 16 the Broncos play the Jets, Colts, and Redskins. Those are three defenses that successful offenses can score on.

 

Legion of Gloom

Remember a year or two ago when Malik Jackson left Denver after winning a Super Bowl and signed with the Jaguars for big money? Every athlete should aim for that. Get your ring, and get paid. I’m completely paraphrasing, but Von Miller voiced his displeasure claiming some players didn’t value loyalty. Nor should they! Jackson went and got paid and cited his family as the reason why. Everybody should respect that. The guy just wanted to make sure his family was financially protected for years to come. If you have the chance to get paid, go do so! 

Now let’s circle back to the Seahawks. Seattle won the Super Bowl a few years back in surprising fashion, upsetting the Broncos in an absolute massacre in Super Bowl XLIX. But since then the team has plateau’d a bit. Sure they’re one of the top defenses in fantasy each year. But Seattle is starting to feel the effects of being pressured into signing “core” players on defense, and then they had to pay Russell Wilson. Where does this leave them? With a terrible offensive line for a team who wants to get back to their true identity and RUN. THE. BALL. This offense is bad. REALLY BAD. They struggled to blow the 49ers out at home. Seattle has one of the best home field advantages in all of football and they struggled to even beat the 49ers. This is why sometimes GM’s need to just let players walk and exhibit discipline with the salary cap. You can’t invest too much into one side of the ball because then the other side completely sucks. Need something to hang your hat on? Eddie Lacy could be cut (which probably means the end for his ‘big fella’ bonuses), and Chris Carson is the guy to own. At least he’s getting touches and looks really good behind this gaudy offensive line. Caron totaled 100 all-purpose yards on Sunday.

 

The Panthers are a Troubled 2-0 Team

Initially there was going to be some praise given right here, but Greg Olsen is a pretty significant loss for the Panthers. For the first time since his rookie year in 2007 Greg Olsen will not be playing football and that’s kind of a bummer. The Panthers added about two million dollars in performance based incentives to his contract for this year and unfortunately Olsen broke his foot in the first half against the Bills on Sunday. Ed Dickson potentially could see an uptick in work. He was quoted after the game saying he wouldn’t like the play calling to change too much as he believes he can fill in for Olsen. From a fantasy perspective, the Panthers are still an intriguing option given their upcoming schedule: they play the Saints at home next week and then go on the road and play the Patriots. Those are two defenses that can certainly bleed points and yards.

 

There Are Some Really Crappy BELL Cows

The Zero-RB pundits are currently lighting their torches and collecting their pitchforks. If you’ve followed my work you’re aware I’m no advocate for the Zero RB theory. One thing I pride myself on is absolute transparency and though I will always take a RB in the first three-four rounds, there are some studs that just straight up suck right now. Le’Veon Bell looked slow and sluggish at times against the Vikings on Sunday. In total, he touches the ball 31 times! That’s a fantasy player’s dream right there! Unfortunately he totaled 91 all-purpose yards with no touchdowns! So after skipping the entire preseason because he didn’t want to practice, LevBell is in preseason mode and we should expect to see him back to his regular self sometime around Week 5-6.

DeMarco Murray and Jordan Howard are in trouble as well. Yes, Zero-RB folks I can hear you pounding on my front door right now. We’ll start with Murray. He struggled to get any form of traction going from the start. He had only nine carries for 25 yards to go with one catch (on two targets) for three yards. His backup, Derrick Henry, touched the ball 14 times for 92 yards and found the end zone. There were a total of 36 rushing attempts by the Titans on Sunday and Murray accounted for only 25% of those. Delanie Walker and Jalston Fowler found the end zone on rushing attempts over Murray. The Titans offense finally came to life in the second half after leading 6-3 at halftime. Perhaps the Titans just didn’t want to risk injury with their veteran RB. There were some reports surfacing after the game that Murray was nursing a mild hamstring injury.

Jordan Howard is currently dealing with a shoulder injury that resulted in another successful game for Tarik Cohen. The running game for the Bears was an abomination on Sunday. Cohen and Howard combined for 20 yards on 16 carries. Cohen at least had eight catches for 55 yards while Howard was ineffective in the passing attack. Keep an eye on Howard’s injury going forward. The Bears don’t seem to be shying away from Cohen, and Howard’s shoulder could diminish his value going forward.

If you thought you’d get out of this article without a Melvin Gordon mention, you were dead wrong! Today was the ultimate Melvin Gordon game. So the Chargers led early, kept it close, then lost in the fourth quarter. Classic Chargers! Gordon, himself, was no ray of sunshine. Gordon had nine rushing attempts on the ground for a grand total of… Wait for it… Wait for iiiiiiiiiit….. 13 yards! And in PPR leagues he still got you 20 points. There was a point in this game where Gordon literally had zero rushing yards on six carries, but he scored a touchdown. Again he scored on a one-yard rushing touchdown and was heavily involved in the passing game. As a pure rusher? Nah, still not buying it. Never will! He’ll win us all a fantasy league or two, but this O-Line isn’t doing him any favors because there’s a good chance he averages under 3.5 YPC this year.

 

Time For Antonio Gates to Ride Off Into the Sunset

Remember the retirement video Jared Allen posted? That’s what Gates needs to do now. Just ride off into the sunset, good sir. You’re a hall of famer no doubt. You now have the record for most TD’s by a tight end until Gronk breaks it. But can the Chargers offense finally get off the ground and focus on winning games instead of this lingering touchdown record? 

Time to go off on a bit of a tangent because when teams chase a personal record for a player there can be some damage done. In 2011 the Boston Red Sox had a nine-game lead over the Rays in the AL Wild Card. The Red Sox were determined to get Tim Wakefield his 200th career win as it was clearly his last season. He touted an ERA over 5.00 almost all year long, but Terry Francona was determined to get this guy his 200th career win. This took a pretty big toll on the Red Sox postseason chances. A lot of people will look to the last game of the season that year where the Sox blew the last game in the 9th inning, and then again in extra innings. But from August 14th to September 7th Boston lost five of his starts over that span. Eventually Wakefield did get his 200th win, but even that came on a six-inning performance where he surrendered five earned runs. Boston lost 18 of their final 24 games that year and missed the playoffs. If they won just one more game over that span they would’ve won the Wild Card.

How does this apply to the Chargers? Personal records can be detrimental to the overall success of a team. The Chargers have lost seven straight games dating back to last year. Did Tim Wakefield cost the Red Sox the postseason? No. They could’ve won any other game they lost where he wasn’t the starter. Is Gates’ record the reason the Chargers have lost seven straight games? Hardly. They’re two field goal attempts away from possibly being 2-0. They have all the necessary weapons on offense to be explosive, but they’ve failed to average 20 points per game over those last seven games. Does the injury to Jason Verrett hurt? Absolutely, but they have younger weapons in this offense. Yes I’ll drink the Melvin Gordon Haterade ‘til there’s none left, but this team has all the pieces to be good and hopefully with the touchdown record in the rear view they can focus on transitioning to Hunter Henry as the guy at tight end going forward.