10 Notes: Week 6 Sneak Peek
Welcome back to “10 Notes Sneak Peek,” the article where I list 10 observations from the previous week, as well as 10 preliminary thoughts about the upcoming week of football. We’ll be taking an early look at the NFL’s Week 6 action. But before we begin…
In Week 5, In Which We Watch Movies,, JMToWin presented a super interesting angle on Week 5, examining his favorite plays through the lens of what their favorite movies might be. I, along with many of you, commented with my top five. They are, in no particular order:
The Royal Tenenbaums
High Fidelity
Swingers
There Will Be Blood
28 Days Later
(If the list was expanded to seven, it would include Bottle Rocket and This Is Spinal Tap, but you know, choices had to be made).
JM’s idea that you can tell a lot about somebody based on their favorite movies got me thinking: what does this hodgepodge of movies say about me? Then I had a realization: if you’d asked me this same question seven or eight years ago, my top-five (or top-seven) list would include the exact same five (or seven) movies, without exception.
Part of this is because it’s just what happens when you have kids – my wife and I have a three-year-old and a three-month-old, and it’s just harder to go out to the theatre, or to find an uninterrupted two-hour chunk of time to watch a movie. And part of it has to do with the fact that, a lot of the time, I’d just rather watch a really good TV show (The Wire, anybody?).
But the real reason I haven’t had a new favorite movie since LaDainian Tomlinson’s heyday is that when I find something I like, I stick with it.
I’m the guy who orders the same meal at the restaurant. I’m the guy who owns eight pairs of jeans but always wears the same pair or two, leaving the other six shoved into the corner of the closet. I’m the guy who just cannot bring himself to click T.Y. Hilton, even though I know he’s been a target monster and is Andrew Luck’s only trusted receiver in a great matchup against a weak Bears secondary in a game I expected to be a shootout. I chose Julian Edelman over Hilton in cash games (even at non-PPR sites). Hilton caught 10-of-11 targets for 171 yards, including the game-winning TD. Edelman had five catches for 35 yards.
It’s dangerous to rely on hindsight in DFS, but Hilton was a decent bet for a touchdown as one of Andrew Luck’s only trusted weapons, and his market share was as secure as any receiver this side of Mike Evans. I knew all this. So why didn’t I just click Hilton?
It’s simple: I didn’t click Hilton because I never click Hilton. Somewhere along the way, I’d made up my mind that I didn’t like the boom-or-bust nature of his game, and in Week 5, he was an afterthought to me, even though the variables had changed – after Donte Moncrief went down with injury, Hilton had garnered double-digit targets in every start this year. Again, I knew this, but in the same way I’m content to call High Fidelity one of my favorite movies even though I haven’t seen it in years (and something tells me it’s not the type of movie that ages well), I was content to fade Hilton, just like I always had. Just like I was always comfortable doing.
Since I’m a high school English teacher by day, I’m about to drop a quote by a very famous writer named Ralph Waldo Emerson. And if you’re the type of person who’s thinking, “I just want to read about football,” well, I kind of don’t blame you. Feel free to scroll down a few lines. But if you’re still here: Emerson said, “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” meaning (I think) don’t fall into habits that prevent you from thinking clearly. Whether it’s refusing to change your movie list or refusing to re-calibrate your decision-making processes in DFS and begin considering players from new angles, it’s easy to fall into a foolish consistency. It’s much harder to take chances that you aren’t comfortable with, even though you know your risk could be rewarded. Here’s hoping in Week 6, we can “add some new movies to the top five.”
Onward to football.
All this happened, more or less.
Recapping noteworthy happenings from Week 5.
1. Angry Tom Brady was as advertised, shredding the Browns secondary for 406 yards and 3 TDs. The beneficiary (as you know if you read my intro) was not Julian Edelman, one of the chalkier plays of the week. Instead, it was…
2. Martellus Bennett, who caught three touchdown passes from Angry Tom Brady. It was the eighth time in franchise history that a Pats tight end caught three touchdown passes…and four of the eight three-TD games belong to Rob Gronkowski. The fact that Gronk chipped in with five catches for 109 yards means that there should be plenty of production to go around in this non-Jacoby Brissett version of the Patriots, but it could make for some frustrating week-to-week decisions for DFS players. On a side note, Gronk’s Week 5 performance was his 21st 100-yard game, which tied him with Antonio Gates for fourth on the all-time list at the position. He’s 10 behind all-time leader Tony Gonzalez.
3. The Vikings are now 5-0, and Sam Bradford has not thrown an interception this season. In fact, he’s one of three QBs with at least 125 pass attempts and zero interceptions on the season. The others are a rookie (Dak Prescott) and an undrafted free agent playing on his sixth team in eight years as a pro (Brian Hoyer).
4. LeSean McCoy was Sunday’s leading rusher, needing just 18 carries to amass 150 yards. It was the best mark of any single game in his career.
5. Sammie Coates had six catches for 139 yards and 2 TDs…and he dropped four passes, according to Pro Football Focus. In other “What Could’ve Been” wide receiver plays, Amari Cooper had his best game of the season, hauling in six passes for 138 yards and a TD. But he could’ve had four touchdowns, as he made two more endzone catches but couldn’t keep both feet in, and he had another touchdown catch called back after he was pushed out of bounds and “failed to reestablish himself in bounds.”
6. Week 5 was a week with a clear roster build that included at least one, but probably two or even three cheap running backs. Well, apart from Jordan Howard, The Week of the Cheap Running Back mostly became The Week Where You Get What You Pay For at Running Back. Jerick McKinnon had an Asiata-esque 36 yards on 20 carries. DeAndre Washington gave credence to ESPN’s Adam Caplan’s report before the game that the Raiders’ carries would be “distributed evenly” between Washington and Jalen Richard (Richard had eight carries to Washington’s nine). And Terrance West was effective but didn’t receive the work load to make a real fantasy impact (11 carries for 95 yards, no TDs). The sharp move was to pivot to Theo Riddick, who rewarded those who rostered him with two TDs in the first quarter.
7. Le’Veon Bell saw 11 targets (and caught nine of them for 88 yards). No other RB had more than seven targets, and only three other WRs (Brandon Marshall, Cameron Meredith, Jordy Nelson) had more than Bell’s 11. The Jets’ stingy run defense didn’t exactly represent a dream matchup for Bell (as evidenced by his 66 yards on 20 carries), but as much as Pittsburgh is using him in the passing game, it’s going to be near impossible to fade him in anything resembling a plus matchup moving forward.
8. Julio Jones caught two of six targets for 29 yards against the Broncos. The “you can beat the Broncos on the ground” truthers were proven correct, as, at time of writing, Tevin Coleman and Devonta Freeman were Week 5’s RB3 and RB6, respectively.
9. Brian Hoyer threw for 397 yards, the third-most in a single game in Bears franchise history, and the most since Jim Miller (not the UFC fighter) threw for 422 in a game in November of 1999. The main beneficiary, though, was not Alshon Jeffery, or Zach Miller, or Eddie Royal. It was Cameron Meredith, a somewhat trendy sleeper, who, after posting a 9-136-1 line against the Colts, will be far more popular in the Bears’ Week 6 matchup against Jacksonville.
10. #PaxtonLynchDay came and went with a whimper. Turns out it’s hard being a rookie QB in the NFL. Unless you’re Dak Prescott. Or Carson Wentz. Okay, so just a rough day at the office for Paxton Lynch.
Looking Ahead to Week 6…
Some preliminary observations on what’s in store for NFL Week 6.
1. Speaking of the Broncos, they meet the Chargers in a premier matchup for Thursday Night Football. C.J. Anderson, in particular, could rebound against a Chargers defense that has been vulnerable to pass-catching RBs such as Anderson. It’s the same defense that gave up 129 receiving yards to Spencer Ware in Week 1, 49 yards to Mark Ingram in Week 4, and a combined 95 yards to DeAndre Washington and Jalen Richard in Week 5. Of course, it’s hard to go all-in on a guy who has the third-lowest yards per carry of any RB with 80+ carries this year.
2. We’ve got an interesting test case for how strong the public is swayed by recency bias, as Marcus Mariota, who was awful in Weeks 1-4 but whose 30 fantasy points led all QBs in Week 5, meets the Cleveland Browns, who have given up multiple touchdowns to every quarterback they’ve faced this year (excluding Jimmy Garoppolo and his one garbage-time attempt on Sunday).
3. The Browns have also allowed five touchdowns to Jordan Reed and Martellus Bennett in the past two weeks (not to mention 109 yards to Gronk), and they’ve allowed an opposing TE to catch 6+ passes in four of five weeks this year. It feels like a Delanie Walker week.
4. Assuming he’s off concussion protocol, Cam Newton could be in for a big game against the division-rival Saints, against whom he’s thrown 10 TD passes to just one INT in his last three matchups. He’s beaten New Orleans on the ground in those contests, as well, totaling 165 rushing yards and two scores.
5. Jordan Howard’s DraftKings price has been hiked up to $6,200. He’s now the eighth-most expensive RB, which means he’s no longer a “bargain” play – in fact, he might even be overpriced for his Week 6 matchup against the Jaguars.
6. One player who, at first glance, seems a bit underpriced at DraftKings is Derek Carr at $6500. After his 318-yard, two-touchdown performance in Week 5, Carr has four games of 20+ DraftKings points. The only other QB in the NFL with four such games this year is Ben Roethlisberger.
7. Jamaal Charles is ready for an “expanded workload” (per ESPN’s Adam Teicher), and as the 17th-most-expensive RB at DraftKings, he costs just $5,100. Charles had two carries in Week 4, so “expanded role” could include a wide range of outcomes. Still, the Chiefs are coming off a bye, and if further reports surface that suggest Charles’s work load is secure, he’s an interesting tournament flier with major upside against a weak Raiders defense in Week 6.
8. Antonio Brown costs $10K at DraftKings in Week 6 – that’s like Russell Westbrook without Durant against the Lakers territory. He’s $1,100 more than the next-highest WR. They’re really making you think about it.
9. There are 23 WRs priced higher than Will Fuller at DraftKings for Week 6 (he’s at $5,900), and this is in his matchup against a Colts secondary that got “Meredithed” today. It’ll be interesting to see whether or not the Colts plan to shadow DeAndre Hopkins with Vontae Davis, because if so, Fuller is in a prime bounce-back spot.
10. My best early guess at a few names that will be chalky in Week 6: Cam Newton, Drew Brees, Le’Veon Bell, LeSean McCoy, DeMarco Murray, Delanie Walker, Cameron Meredith, Sammie Coates. Just like last week, I could be dead wrong on these, but at first glance, these seem like obvious plays for Week 6.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Thanks for reading! All stats from this article were pulled from Pro Football Reference, StatMuse, Pro Football Focus, Football Outsiders, NFL.com, and FootballGuys.com.
Be sure to check out “10 Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful Notes” for NFL Week 6, which will be published on Thursday. Good luck this week!