The Blitz Week 8: NFC Edition
All of the most important statistics, insights, and analysis for every fantasy-relevant player in the NFC
We’re nearly at the halfway point of the NFL season as we approach Week 9. As usual, it’s been chaotic, humbling, and hopefully, enjoyable. I know I’ve had to re-adjust the way I’m looking at almost every player and offense in the NFL as we’ve gone along. Fortunately, after the pain of realizing you were wrong fades, your new, more accurate perspective can help you get a leg up on those still clinging to their biases.
You’ll notice that I’m talking more confidently about utilization and player value — that’s because I’ve established a baseline expectation for player performance, situational play-calling, formation usage, and opponent influence. By now I’ve done enough research with a big enough sample size to feel confident, and I want you to feel that way as well. That’s not to say that variance can’t flip things upside down on any given week or in any given game, because it can, but we have to do our best to see through that.
In this week’s newsletter, my goal is to cut through the variance and establish an expectation for what we can expect from every fantasy-relevant player in the NFC. Cut through the noise while others get lost in it and reap the rewards.
Arizona Cardinals
Arizona passed at a 63.7% rate in a close Thursday night affair, and it was good to see some balance in one of the few competitive games they’ve played in. This is the best evidence we have in regards to how they’ll handle play-calling in neutral scripts.
Kyler Murray (8.3 YPA) threw for 274 yards, but also a killer 0:2 TD/INT while adding just 21 rushing yards. Kyler is rushing for only 18.4 yards per game in 2021, and his fantasy production has taken a major hit because of it. Until we see the rushing production come back, Murray is just a low-end QB1.
Chase Edmonds (59.3% snaps, 10 touches, 4 targets) is healthy and he looked electric, averaging nearly seven yards per touch in this one. Unfortunately, fake sharp Kliff Kingsbury decided 10 touches was enough, and he paid the price by losing a winnable game. Edmonds is talented, but he’s held back by his coach and the lack of a goal-line role… I’m valuing him like a low-end RB2 with questionable upside.
James Conner (37.3% snaps, 0 targets) plodded around for a 5/22/2 line, and he just keeps stealing touchdowns from more deserving players. Fantasy Football isn’t about who deserves things though, and Conner must be taken seriously as a threat to score two touchdowns every week. I’m valuing Conner like a touchdown-dependent RB3 who usually scores a touchdown. Outside of games where Arizona is a 3+ point underdog, he’s startable in all formats.
DeAndre Hopkins (2/66/0, 25% snaps, 7% target share, 21.0 aDOT) gutted it out as much as he could but eventually gave way to a hamstring injury, missing most of the game. When healthy, I’m still valuing Hopkins like a high-end WR2 due to target share and passing volume concerns.
A.J. Green (5/50/0, 28% target share, 11.0 aDOT) was solid, but he couldn’t put together a big game even with Hopkins M.I.A. Green remains a WR5 with a decent floor and a very questionable ceiling.
Christian Kirk (4/46/0, 78% snaps, 21% target share, 13.5 aDOT) also failed to do anything exciting, and he remains in the WR5 bucket as well. Kirk is far more explosive than Green at this stage, but Green is a near full-time player even when DeAndre Hopkins is healthy, and Kirk is decidedly not.
Rondale Moore is more talented than every Arizona skill position player not named DeAndre Hopkins, but his environment continues to hold him back. The playing time and target equity just aren’t there with all of the other mouths to feed, and it’s hard to see a scenario where that changes. Unless Kliff Kingsbury smartens up and moves Moore into a bigger role, consistency will be a major issue, so he’s best viewed as an unpredictable WR5.
Zach Ertz (4/42/0, 73% snaps, 14% target share, 8.2 aDOT) had promising usage, and he’s been very involved since arriving in Arizona, but the target crunch is real for him as well. The red zone is where Ertz needs to establish himself if he’s to be more than a middling TE2, but that’s the likeliest outcome here.
Atlanta Falcons
Arthur Smith lost his mind and cost his team the game against Carolina, but more on that later. The Falcons threw at a fairly average 60 percent rate in Week 8 against a Carolina defense that encourages teams to try and run the ball on them. Atlanta’s pass rate has been very stable all year in the 60-65 percent range.
Calvin Ridley has stepped away from football in wake of mental health issues, and he missed Sunday’s game for that reason. We now know why he was out for the London game a few weeks back as well. F**k fantasy football for a minute — real-life and mental health is far more important. I wish Ridley all the best, and it’s courageous of him to admit that mental health was the reason he needed to step away.
Matt Ryan (5.4 YPA) was absolutely awful after showing some promising signs the last couple of weeks. Ryan threw for just 146 yards and a 1:2 TD/INT while seeing his aDOT regress down to 7.2. This was the version of Ryan we saw in Weeks 1-4, and it’s never going to fully go away. With Calvin Ridley stepping away, Ryan is barely a fantasy consideration outside of streaming in dream matchups.
This is the part where we rip Arthur Smith. Mike Davis (64% snaps, 6 targets) and Cordarrelle Patterson (60% snaps, 5 targets) each handled 14 touches, which is an issue in and of itself because Davis is bad and Patterson is good. However, the indefensible error was Patterson being out-targeted 6-5 by Davis in a game where Patterson was the team’s second-best receiving weapon behind only Kyle Pitts (who was also atrociously underutilized).
Patterson ran just 15 routes in a game where should have been the team’s No. 1 wide receiver. He still got there, scoring 18.2 PPR points while being predictably efficient and finding the end zone, but there’s no defending this game plan at all. Patterson averaged 7.4 yards per target to Mike Davis’ 3.7… guess who ran more routes and had more targets? Davis.
The Arthur Smith shaming had to happen, but I apologize for the tangent. As far as the fantasy outlook goes for these two backs, Patterson remains an RB2 and Davis remains a low-end RB3 with no juice. The one thing Arthur Smith has gotten right with the backfield is the red zone work, as Patterson has out-touched Davis 6-0 in the red zone over the last two weeks. If Smith smartens up elsewhere, Patterson could approach RB1 status while Davis could and should fade away entirely.
Tajae Sharp led all receivers in routes run with just 21, and his 5/58/0 game is pretty much a ceiling performance for him going forward unless he manages to catch a fluke touchdown pass at some point. Many people thought that Russell Gage would have a big game with Calvin Ridley out, but they forgot that Russell Gage sucks at football, as he didn’t even record a single target despite playing 68 percent of snaps. My advice is to avoid all Atlanta wide receivers going forward unless you’re feeling very lucky.
Kyle Pitts (2/13/0, 83% snaps, 22% target share, 14.8 aDOT) led the team in routes with 30 but didn’t do much of anything despite being the team’s clear go-to-guy sans Ridley. This was more of a Matt Ryan problem, as Ryan just plays so bad at times that he doesn’t even give his guys a chance. Pitts lines up like a receiver, and he is this team’s number one wide receiver by a wide margin despite being listed as a tight end. Ryan struggles be damned, Pitts is too talented not to crush while dominating volume here… he’s a top-three TE1.