NFL DFS WR/TE Usage: Reviewing Week 10
NFL passing attacks evolve, and stats like targets, air yards, and snap counts rarely stay consistent for an entire season. NFL wide receivers and tight end usage is therefore critical knowledge for our lineup decisions on DraftKings, FanDuel, and Yahoo.
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Let’s use the RotoGrinders Usage App from JoshADHD to remind ourselves of a few key usage trends from the week that was. We’ll want to understand how it could help us with our NFL projections and projected ownership in the coming weeks.
Week 10 NFL DFS Wide Receiver and Tight End Targets and Air Yards Report
Chase Claypool
NFL Team: Pittsburgh Steelers
Position: WR
Snap Percentage: 60% in Week 10
Team Share of Targets: 23.4% in Week 10
Team Share of Air Yards: 41.3% in Week 10
In addition to the numbers above, Claypool also amassed 178 air yards on Sunday against the Bengals. That not only led the Steelers, but it led the entire league as well. Tyler Lockett was next with 156 air yards.
And this makes it three straight games in which Claypool has been inundated with targets. He saw nine of them in Week 8, 14 (!!) in Week 9, and then 11 this past weekend. Oh, and let’s not forget that they try to get him the ball a few times per game on some jet sweep action.
Up next for Claypool and the Steelers is a matchup against the Jaguars. The same Jaguars who ranked dead last in Pass Defense DVOA prior to Week 10. Claypool checks in at just $6,400 on FanDuel and $6,100 on DraftKings this week.
Darren Waller
NFL Team: Las Vegas Raiders
Position: TE
Snap Percentage: 89% in Week 10
Team Share of Targets: 22.7% in Week 10
Team Share of Air Yards: 37.1% in Week 10
Even though Waller was a failure from a fantasy perspective on Sunday, this is more of a check-in to let everyone know that there is no need to be worried here.
First and foremost, this wouldn’t even be a discussion if Waller didn’t drop that pass from Carr that would have absolutely resulted in a 50+ yard TD reception. Yes, that is on Waller for dropping it, but the fact remains you don’t see too many tight ends in this league running those kinds of routes (and also getting that open on them).
Which brings me to his air yards. He had 79 of them in Week 10 and another 76 in Week 9. Those were his two highest totals of the season, with the exception of the 105 he racked up back in Week 2. With George Kittle out for the year, only Travis Kelce is seeing that many air yards at the tight end position.
So it shouldn’t be much surprise that, week in and week out, Waller is leading this team in market share of targets and market share of air yards. He did it on Sunday, and we should project him to do it again in Week 11.
Hopefully this time though he catches that deep ball if given the opportunity. And where the game-script hurt him in Week 10 (the Raiders barely had to throw in the fourth quarter), it could be in his favor in Week 11 since they have to face the Chiefs.
Jakobi Meyers
NFL Team: New England Patriots
Position: WR
Snap Percentage: 98% in Week 10
Team Share of Targets: 41.2% in Week 10
Team Share of Air Yards: 49.5% in Week 10
This Meyers blurb would probably make more sense in an article that had “Reviewing the Last Three Weeks” in its title. But the usage was astronomical once again in Week 10, just as it was the two weeks before.
We can of course tie all of this to the absence of Julian Edelman, and I haven’t seen anything that indicates Edelman will be back for Week 11. Check out these numbers that Meyers posted in Weeks 8-10, while noting how big the gap is between he and the next closest player on the team (Damiere Byrd, whose numbers will be listed in parentheses).
Targets: 32 (13)
Market Share of Targets: 42.7% (21.6%)
Air Yards: 317 (147)
Market Share of Air Yards: 58.9% (34.5%)
I am extremely intrigued to see what his Projected Ownership looks like this week considering he hasn’t been on a Main Slate for the past two weeks. He is only $4,900 on DraftKings this week and gets a rather favorable matchup against a poor Houston Texans pass defense.