Framing matters in fantasy football. When you scroll through the free agents in your league and see a high scorer, your first instinct might be to consider adding him.
Think about what O.J. Howard did in Week 1 for the Texans: two touchdowns, 38 yards. At the paper-thin tight end position, that’s a gold mine! But what did he do this week? One catch for seven yards. When you consider he played just 17% of snaps, it’s easy to see that isn’t sustainable.
Just as there are two sides to a coin, there are different ways to look at different fantasy situations. The trick is to determine which view you should take before making your next move. In this new SI Fantasy series, I’ll deliver some good news/bad news scenarios. It might be a player showing positive signs but with underlying concerns; it might be a player who is struggling but has reasons for optimism. Let’s dive in…
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D’Andre Swift, Lions
Swift is essentially going for a first down each time he touches the ball. Detroit’s dual-threat back leads the NFL in yards per carry (10) and ranks second at his position in yards per catch (12.4), pending the Monday night games.
His 262 yards from scrimmage are the third-most in the NFL and leads all running backs. He also has two touchdowns—one on the ground, one through the air—for a suddenly very fun Detroit offense. Swift is one of 10 players in the league, and the only running back, to average better than 10 yards per touch. It goes without saying, but that is very good!
So what holes could I possibly poke in the overall RB2’s stellar start to the season? Well, not to be too direct, but could the guy who averages essentially a first down’s worth of yards every time he touches the ball perhaps do so a bit more often?
Swift’s 25 touches are tied for the 24th-most in the league with, get this, Jamaal Williams! Swift’s teammate, comparably, averages 3.6 yards per touch. Swift was dealing with an ankle injury heading into the Commanders game this week, which explains why he played just 51% of snaps in a game the Lions led 22-0 at halftime. Still, he was healthy enough to rip off a 50-yard rush for the second game in a row.
Going forward, it would be nice to see Swift fed like the RB1 he so clearly is. But I know that’s just wishful thinking. The good news here is that Swift is the most efficient running back in football and will continue to be good for fantasy. The bad news is Williams stands in the way of the 20-touch games Swift managers so desperately desire.
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Javonte Williams, Broncos
So far in his young career, Williams feels like the posterboy for this category. “There’s good news, but…” Williams’s 15 carries led the Broncos in an ugly win against the Texans on Sunday and he finished with 75 yards on the ground. That beats the season opener, when he carried the ball seven times to Melvin Gordon’s 12.
Williams’s snap percentage rose from 58% in Week 1 to 65% in Week 2 while Gordon’s fell from 41% to 32%. The game script didn’t necessitate as many dump-offs as Williams saw in the first game, when he set career-highs in targets (13) and receptions (11). He still finished with 15-plus touches for a second consecutive game and is tied for 11th in the NFL in total touches (34)—Gordon is tied for 24th (25).
So Williams is trending up and Gordon was less involved this week—the passing work fell off but that always felt like an aberration. So what’s the bad news? The Russell Wilson-Nathaniel Hackett Broncos cannot score. Denver ranks 26th in points per game (16), Wilson has two passing touchdowns and the team has zero rushing touchdowns. This is great for kicker Brandon McManus, who’s booted three field goals in each contest, but not for Broncos skill position players.
Williams can rack up yards between the 20s and add value in the receiving game, but if this offense is as bad as it’s looked, he has bigger problems than staving off Gordon for work.
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D.J. Moore, Panthers
Moore is one of the more consistent receivers in the NFL. For three seasons in a row now, Carolina’s top wideout has finished with at least 1,100 yards and exactly four touchdowns. The hope for Moore this season was that his unflappable receiving production would keep up, if not increase, and that by playing with Baker Mayfield, the best quarterback of his career, there was a chance for positive touchdown regression.
The early returns on the Mayfield-Moore connection, or lack thereof, are a bit concerning. Moore is still consistent to a tee—he somehow posted identical stat lines of three catches on six targets for 43 yards Week 1 and Week 2—but his opportunities are not what they were last season. In 17 games in 2021, Moore was never targeted fewer than seven times and he saw double-digit targets 10 times. That’s how he finished with the sixth-most targets in football.
Without that volume, Moore is simply a good possession receiver who leaves you wanting more in the touchdown department.
There is some room for optimism. Mayfield’s number of attempts and yards per attempt through two games in Carolina are down from his career averages. He ranks 24th among all quarterbacks in passing attempts and that’s including the four quarterbacks who have yet to play a second game. So while Moore has yet to put together his staple six for 84, or eight for 100 line, there’s hope that an uptick in overall passing volume could buoy him.
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Rashod Bateman, Ravens
Bateman has stepped into the WR1 role in Baltimore swimmingly. His 167 receiving yards lead the team, he’s already surpassed his touchdown total from his rookie season and he’s scoring on a third of his touches. What’s not to love about that?
Well, as much as I believed in Bateman coming into this season (and still do!), this level and type of production is not sustainable. I feel pretty confident saying that touchdown regression is coming for Bateman, at least on a per-touch basis, unless he’s coming for Randy Moss’s single-season TD record, which I doubt. And Bateman’s league-leading 27.8 yards per reception is a full five yards ahead of second place. That’s going to come down as well, though there is a bit more truth to his level of involvement in the deep passing game.
That’s the role Marquise Brown occupied in the Ravens’ offense last season when Bateman was working the middle of the field as a rookie. Someone needed to fill the hole when Brown was traded away and so far, it’s been Bateman who has touchdown grabs of 55 and 75 yards.
Lamar Jackson currently leads the NFL in touchdown percentage (10.2), yards per attempt (10.3) and yards per completion (14). Those, too, will regress toward Jackson’s career averages, but the deep passing production, so far, is real.
Still, Bateman isn’t going to beat defenses over the top every single week, so getting a few more looks and hauling in a couple more passes will make him an even better play week in and week out.
