It was a close finish between the top-two fantasy players this week, with Mike Evans narrowly edging out Aaron Jones, both making their second appearance on the list of top-5 weekly finishers.
Evans earned 42.8 fantasy points, catching 11 of 12 targets for 198 yards and two TDs. This is his second game in his career with over 40 points, with the other coming in Week 3 (45 points). Playing from behind, Tampa Bay was forced to throw early and often, with Evans being the beneficiary. His high score is in large part due to achieving a ridiculous 91.67% catch rate. Compare that to his average this year of 56.25%, partially due to his inconsistent QB, Jameis Winston, alongside his consistently high average depth per target. 11 receptions for Evans ties a career-high, and 198 receiving yards is his second-most. Evans is one of the most volatile wide receivers in the sport with Winston at QB and sharing the air-space with another elite WR, Chris Godwin. Evans has two games under 5 points this year, including a goose egg in Week 5.
Aaron Jones is back with 41.6 points on 13 carries for 67 yards and 7/159/2 through the air. Though this is his second-highest output, having managed 49.2 in Week 5, I’m more impressed with this performance given that his backfield compatriot, Jamaal Williams, returned from his injury and is sharing touches. Jones needed 26 opportunities in Week 5, but only 20 for this week's score. Both of these explosion-games have come on the road, with the former being due to four rushing TDs and the latter due to his receiving production of 7/159/2. Unfortunately, coach Matt LaFleur insists on using a committee approach in the backfield.
I can’t expect these results to continue to this level with Jones playing under 60% of the snaps with Williams healthy. In fact, Williams had two TDs of his own in this game, and just two weeks ago was the benefactor of a Jones getting benched mid-game due to a dropped TD pass. In that game, Jones played under half of the offensive snaps for the second time this season, and his average yearly average coming into this week was 60% in spite of Williams missing time.
The first new name on the list is the 49ers’ lead RB, Tevin Coleman, who rushed for 11/105/3 and caught both of his targets for 13 yards and another TD. He has looked awesome at times, since returning from injury in Week 5, but is touchdown-dependent due to low involvement in the passing game and sharing the backfield with Matt Breida. The touchdowns came in bunches this week, as Coleman destroyed the Panthers for 9.5 YPC and four total TDs.
Now for the bad news: He is averaging only two targets per game through five starts, has not eclipsed 22 touches in any game, and has only 61 total receiving yards on the year. Even worse, he had 33 of those receiving yards in Week 1 before leaving with an injury, and has only averaged seven yards per game since returning. He does rank seventh in total TDs for RBs this year, but he is also seventh in fantasy points over expectation at the position largely due to being 25.1 FPOE in this game.
Coach Kyle Shanahan likes to use multiple RBs and will almost certainly continue to do so with his team’s 7-0 start. This will probably be Coleman’s best game of the year, but I expect him to be good for somewhere in the 7-20 point range for most weeks. He does have the benefit of playing on a run-heavy team who projects playing from the lead in most games.
I sure do love the Saints’ backfield production, especially when it all goes to one guy. Coming in at fourth in back-to-back weeks is Latavius Murray, who has gotten fed all the opportunities we could have hoped for with Alvin Kamara injured. Murray topped last week’s score of 32 with 36.7 fantasy points on 21/102/1 rushing and 9/55/1 receiving here in Drew Brees’ return. They gave him the full Kamara treatment; RB1 + WR1 all in one player.
These are the type of workhorse situations that win fantasy leagues, but this one is likely to be short-lived. The Saints are entering their bye week, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Kamara return after three weeks of rest. The Saints are rolling, having not lost a single game while Brees was out, so they won’t need to rush Kamara back if he’s not 100%. Given Murray’s recent production, it would make sense for them to give him more work going forward, even once Kamara is back, but the situation will need monitoring and may be hard to predict on a weekly basis.
Cooper Kupp wraps up our list after having narrowly missed in Week 3 and having been one of the highest-floor WRs so far this year. He somehow gained 220 yards on only seven receptions with 10 targets and a lone TD, good for 35 fantasy points. That comes out to 31.4 yards per catch, which is absurd. If you didn’t catch his highlights yet, I’d highly recommend doing so. He is averaging 21 PPG, ranking him only behind Michael Thomas in total points at WR, and has four weeks over 26 points.
Kupp had been relatively quiet the previous two weeks due to recent struggles from his QB, Jared Goff. Goff went off in London, at least to Kupp who accounted for over 59% of his total passing yards. Kupp added 124 yards after the catch, as he’s making a habit of doing with now 50 or more YAC in four games this season. Even more impressive, is that Kupp is accomplishing this in his first year back from a torn ACL.
He is Goff’s favorite target, averaging 10.9 targets per game, and is simply one of the best receivers in the league. He ranks in the top four in seven metrics at WR including first in expected points, second in targets and yards, and third in receptions and points per game. I am a bit worried about his recent dip in targets over the last three games after the insane start, but hopefully, the offense will continue to feature him given his awesome production.