Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Week 3 edition of The First Look for the 2021 NFL season. This will be a data driven article and will go under the hood to see if the box scores tell the whole story about what transpired during the weekend. My goal here will be to either calm your nerves about a player that may have underperformed or cause you to rethink some of the spots you may have taken.
Outside of the MNF game we have a pretty good sense of what transpired this past weekend.
Let’s dig in to the data!
Wide Receiver Targets
After a poor opening week, Davante Adams now has back to back 100 yard games. Over the last 2 weeks Adams has 20 receptions for over 250 years. Last night in a prime time game Adams found the end zone for his first TD of the year. No receiver had more targets on the day than Adams as he finished with 18 targets. The Adams/Rodgers combo is starting to heat up and look for it to continue next week with a match up vs. the Steelers.
Chase Claypool is someone who is on an upward trend. He has now seen targets of 5, 9, and 15 targets through the first 3 weeks and barely missed the century mark this weekend as he finished with 96 yards. While he hasn’t found the end zone just yet, it’s only a matter of time. If I were a betting man I’d say he gets his first TD of the year next week vs. the Packers
Not sure what else we can say about Cooper Kupp at this point. We have 3 straight weeks now with double digit targets. Only Adams has been targeted more than Kupp at this point. He is the focal point of this offense and leads the league in both receiving yards and TD’s. He’s good. That’s my expert analysis.
Running Back Targets
There was Najee Harris, and then everyone else this week. He finished as the leader in targets among not just Running Backs, but all players this weekend. Harris was able to convert 14 of his 19 targets into receptions and finished the day with 102 receiving yards. While we can’t expect this type of target share on a weekly basis, he did have 5 targets last week. He’s a dual threat and we should continue to target him in DFS.
If we’re going to talk about dual threats, one guy we need to continue to talk about is Austin Ekeler. In his last two games he’s been targeted at least 6 times in each game. Both of those games he was able to eclipse the 100 yard mark through a combination of receiving and rushing yards. Look for another productive week next week against the Raiders.
One guy that finally cracked this list was Saquon Barkley. If the Giants have any hope of winning a game this year they’ll need a healthy and involved Barkley. This week they got that as he more than doubled his season long targets. He finished the game w/ 6 receptions on 7 targets and 43 receiving yards. For the first time this season he also cracked the 100 total yard mark.
Tight End Targets
Two guys not on this list? Kyle Pitts and TJ Hockenson. The two Tight Ends I played this week? You got it, Pitts and Hockenson. The guy that led all Tight Ends was none other than Mike Gesicki. Gesicki finished the game with 10 receptions on 12 targets for 86 yards. Gesicki and Waddle accounted for more than half of all of Brissett’s targets. With Brissett now locked in as the Dolphins starting QB it will be interesting to see if this tandem continues to be productive next week vs. the Colts.
Mark Andrews had the break out game we were all looking for. After failing to get much separation into the open space in the first two weeks of the season, Andrews was able to gain over 100 receiving yards. His 21 YPC average was far greater than his first weeks where he averaged just 7 and 10 YPC. This week saw his teammate Marquis Brown drop multiple passes. If that continues we could very well see all of those targets start to go more to Andrews.
Another guy that had a break out week was Tyler Conklin. After only getting 8 targets through the first two weeks, Conklin was targeted 8 times this week and was able to convert 7 of them into 70 yards and 1 TD. He’s still the number 3 target at best behind Thielen and Jefferson, but if he continues to get this many targets we’ll want to make sure he’s in our pool of Tight Ends come Sunday.
Quarterback Target Share
We now have 3 straight weeks of Matt Ryan being in the top of when it comes to QB’s and RB target share. Patterson and Davis combined for 11 of Ryan’s 36 attempts, with Patterson grabbing 6 of his 7 targets. While Ridley finished with the most, it’s going to be a risk playing him every week knowing his share of the targets is not safe.
The top two guys that used their Tight Ends heavily shouldn’t come as a surprise. Kelce and Andrews are two of the best in the league and when they are heavily involved, both Mahomes and Jackson are at their best.
Aaron Rodgers had his most attempts all year as he threw the ball 33 times last night. The good thing for him was that he had a guy like Adams by his side. Adams and MVS accounted for two thirds of his targets. With a target like Adams we can make the assumption that Rodgers will continue to throw the ball to his receivers consistently.
Running Back Touches
Derrick Henry led the league again in touches with another 28 carries this week for 113 rushing yards. He is a workhorse and although he’s expensive in DFS, week in and week out you know you’re going to get production. He is the Titans offense.
With Cook out yesterday, Mattison took over in the backfield and finished behind only Henry for carries this week. Vikings fans had to feel at ease knowing that they really didn’t miss a beat yesterday with Mattison as he finished with 112 yards rushing. Although he didn’t find the end zone, he was as productive as you can be without the TD as he also finished with 6 receptions for 59 yards.
CEH finally had himself a game. After a couple of rough games to start the year, CEH broke the century mark for the first time. Although he did lose one fumble, his 6 YPC had to leave the Chiefs excited about things to come in future weeks. This is a dynamic offense and having a guy like CEH next to Hill and Kelce makes both of these guys even tougher to defend.
Red Zone Rushes
Jones, Swift, and Barber all saw the most red zone rushes on the week and they all saw the end zone. The one guy on here that has the caution flag is Nick Chubb. No touch downs aside, he’s having to share the ball in the red zone. Kareem Hunt had 2 rushes and then Johnson and Keenum each had 1. Sharing is caring, but not in the red zone.
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