With Week 13 behind us, the fantasy football playoffs are either upon you or they’re imminent. As such, understanding where the relative distribution of passes and handoffs in an offense are going, have gone, and will go is essential to your success. As is identifying key matchups to take advantage of for the rest of the season. This post will do a bit of both.
A note this week: the format changes slightly, we’ve broken things up by division, links to each page can be found at the bottom of the screen… otherwise, just read and follow along. Remember: we’re using ProFootballFocus’ ‘thrown at’ data which takes a more reasonable assessment of balls thrown in a receiver’s direction, so, you may notice some slight discrepancy from box scores.
Touches and Targets Week 13: AFC North
Week 13 Touches and Targets: Pittsburgh Steelers
Le’Veon Bell posted his second 30+ touch workload and used it to run all over the Saints (Photo: Joe Sargent/Getty Images).
The Steelers weren’t kidding when they said they’d give Le’Veon Bell all the work that he could handle after the release of LeGarrette Blount. He played 90(!) of Pittsburgh’s 92(!) snaps this week and had 21 carries to go with eight receptions on 11 targets. That’s 64 touches over the last two weeks, folks. Dri Archer had an unproductive carry as his only relief. The Saints are awful against RBs, as I’ve continually noted, but with back to back 220 plus total yards in his last two games Bell is trying to will his team and his fantasy owners to the playoffs. Cincinnati plays the run tough (Week 14) but Bell closes the season with the Falcons and Chiefs, and should absolutely feast during your fantasy playoffs.
Antonio Brown is awesome (12/8/97/2). Heath Miller had eight receptions on 13 targets as well, though his work was buoyed by the come from behind nature of the game and the fact that the Steelers ran those 92 plays (the vet participated in all of them). Elsewhere, something interesting evidently happened during the team’s bye week. Markus Wheaton and Martavis Bryant had been playing very equal snaps in the weeks leading into the bye, but came out of it with Wheaton seeing over 70% to just 36% for Bryant, who also played behind Lance Moore. The second year man logged nine targets and five receptions while the rookie was targeted four times and made just one catch. If I’m a Bryant owner I’ll give him a week’s rest and see how things shape up against Cincinnati.
Week 13 Touches and Targets: Baltimore Ravens
Justin Forsett had 26 touches and 123 yards, and has now topped 100 yards rushing in three straight outings. He’s taken over full and deserved control of the Ravens backfield, with both Bernard Pierce (six carries) and Lorenzo Taliaferro playing single digit snaps.
There was a time where it looked like Steve Smith Sr. was the only receiver worth talking about in Baltimore. That moment is long since forgotten, and teammate Torrey Smith put an exclamation mark on it in Week 13. Torrey was targeted eight times and made six receptions for 65 yards, scoring twice. Following a disappointing two target outing, he’s now had five scores in his last five games. Meanwhile, Smith Sr. was targeted four times against San Diego and made just one catch for two yards. He still deserves a WR3 spot most weeks, but his play and his usage have both fallen off significantly in the second half. Kamar Aiken (4/3/51) was far more productive this week, though his biggest play came in a failed comeback attempt, catching the ball with time on the clock but not quite getting out of bounds. Aiken’s work only came with Torrey Smith and Marlon Brown dealing with injuries. Smith should be safe to deploy in Week 14, as we’re told the injury is minor. TE Owen Daniels was targeted just three times.
Week 13 Touches and Targets: Cleveland Browns
There wasn’t a lot of running room for the Browns against Buffalo’s tough defensive front, but the opportunities were heavily slanted in favor of Isaiah Crowell (17-29) over Terrance West (7-32). That West ran a little better seems unlikely to factor into the Week 14 workload consideration, with HC Mike Pettine calling West’s 3rd quarter fumble ‘inexcusable’. Crowell is a safe bet to repeat this type of carry distribution in Week 14, and led first half carries 13-4 before the miscue, anyhow.
It was the Josh Gordon show yet again in the passing game, and he made good on seven of his 12 targets for 75 yards. Everything was underneath, mind you, as he and Brian Hoyer/Johnny Manziel failed to connect on a pass thrown deeper than ten yards (eye test/memory only…). With time, QB and WR will find themselves on the same page. With a tough but exploitable matchup against Indianapolis on the schedule, and a Week 16 date against the Panthers, there are big games left in Gordon. Miles Austin drew nine targets and made a few big plays for Cleveland (seven catches, 86 yards) while Andrew Hawkins was surprisingly targeted just three times. Austin has now seen 17 targets to Hawkins’ eight since Gordon’s return.
Update: It was a busy Wednesday in Cleveland. Brian Hoyer, and not Johnny Manziel will be under center for the Browns this week. Again, all options are pretty much comparable in the passing game. In fact, with Hoyer the benefit is you know what you’ll be getting from a rough accuracy/target load standpoint. In further news, Isaiah Crowell missed Wednesday’s practice and is no sure thing for Week 14; while Miles Austin has been placed on the I.R. shifting Hawkins’ needle up. For now, Taylor Gabriel (21 snaps vs. 9 for Travis Benjamin) is the presumed beneficiary.
Week 13 Touches and Targets: Cincinnati Bengals
Jeremy Hill and Giovani Bernard played a precisely even number of snaps (32-31) but a surprising reversal of trends happened on a number of fronts. First, Hill caught more balls (four, on four targets vs. one for Bernard). Second, Bernard ran more efficiently (10-49; 13-40). All told, Hill out-touched Bernard 17-11 but they are doing a fine job of sapping each other’s value. Hill was critical of his usage after the game, leading to Hue Jackson to be critical of the back himself. I don’t think this has a major impact on his role moving ahead, though complaining about it won’t mean any more work, to be sure.
In the passing game, James Wright’s four targets were one more than Mohamed Sanu and his three receptions made him the second most productive receiver this week. Sanu had seven looks a week ago though, so, you can just write this one off as an odd week perhaps influenced by Andy Dalton’s illness (he was actually sick, we’re not talking about the case of interception-itis he’s been afflicted with) and continue to treat him as a WR4. AJ Green was targeted seven times and found the endzone.
1: AFC North | 2: AFC South | 3: AFC East | 4: AFC West | 5: NFC North | 6: NFC South | 7: NFC East | 8: NFC West
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