Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Week 4 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
Before we dig in to individual player performances I wanted to take a moment to talk about why we focus so heavily on Targets. Targets equal opportunities and in fantasy opportunity more often than creates production. The more targets that a player gets the better chance there is that the player will return value.
After sitting out last week vs. the Bengals Diontae Johnson came back this week with arguably his best performance of the year. He was able to reel in 9 of his 13 targets for 92 yards and 1 TD. Johnson now has 3 straight games of at least 10 targets and continues to be Big Ben’s go to guy.
Kupp had his highest number of targets this week but also had his worst performance of the year. He was only able to pull in 5 receptions on the 13 targets he saw. He also had a season low 64 receiving yards. As the season goes on I’m sure we’ll see a performances like this at some point, but this was more due to the Cardinals just hounding him all game long. More often that not Kupp will have games like weeks 1-3 than he will a game 4.
I think we can all agree that Tyreek Hill was the star of the show on Sunday. He finished the game catching 11 of his 12 receptions and 186 yards receiving. He also scored the rare “hat trick” with 3 touchdowns. Based on his season long performance we know there’s going to be volatility with Hill. But when all is said and done there are few in the league that have the type of upside that Hill brings us.
Running Back Targets
With Both Julio Jones and A.J. Brown out for Tennessee someone had to be the beneficiary of increased targets. That man was < 1% owned Jeremy McNichols. While he had only 1 carry for 11 yards yesterday he did see 12 targets. He was able to catch 8 of those passes for 74 yards. Once Jones and Brown are back I doubt we see this level of production from McNichols but if they remain out, keep an eye on him.
Saquon Barkley is back folks. He’s back with a vengeance too. For this first time this season he was able to eclipse the 100 total yard marker. Most of his damage was done through the air as he finished the game 5 receptions for 74 yards and 1 TD. His 54 yard touchdown reception had to leave his fantasy owners with a huge smile as we finally saw that breakaway speed of his.
Cordarelle Patterson is becoming a mainstay on this chart. He now has 3 consecutive weeks of at least 6 targets and 2 straight weeks of 82 receiving yards. Patterson has become a favorite of Matt Ryan and with a match up next week against the Jets there’s no reason to think that we won’t see another high target volume day for him.
Tight End Targets
He lead all Tight Ends in targets this weekend but I think we can all agree that Kittle was a huge disappointment. He was targeted 11 times yesterday and was only able to bring in 4 for receptions and just 40 yards. This could be chalked up to being out of rhythm with Trey Lance but if Garoppolo misses any time it’s something we’ll need to continue to monitor.
Tight Ends vs. the Ravens will be a thing this year. While Hockenson was a disappointment last weekend, Fant was not. He had the second most targets of any Tight End with 10 yesterday and was able to corral 6 of them 46 yards and a TD.
Quarterback Target Share
While Matt Ryan didn’t crack the top 5 this week, he sat at number 6 and continues to use the likes of Patterson and Davis heavily in the passing game. This week he just started to use Pitts more often as Pitts had the third most targets of any tight end in the league.
Not on the page for tight ends this week are the likes of Mahomes and Jackson. What we did see was Prescott use a combo of Schutlz and Jarwin for 11 targets this weekend. This led to a poor week for Cee Dee Lamb who was only able to catch 2 passes for just 13 yards. By far his worst week. Lamb now has 2 subpar performances in a row and it’s something we’re going to need to monitor.
Russell Wilson only threw the ball 22 times this weekend with more than half of them going to DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett. Only 5 of his pass attempts when to non-receivers. When building lineups, the though of any targets for non-receivers should be limited.
Another guy that continues to use just receivers is Joe Burrows. 23 of his 32 passing attempts went to receivers. After getting targeted 4 times in Week 1 Mixon now only has 5 targets combined in Weeks 2-4. It’s something that we’ll need to consider when setting lineups each week.
Running Back Touches
The day ends in Y and Derrick Henry led the league again in touches. For the second time in three weeks Henry eclipsed the 30 attempt mark. This week he had 33 rushes for 157 yards and a TD. With Jones and Brown out they relied more heavily on the run game and when you have a guy like Henry, that’s always going to be a successful path.
Let’s talk about Zeke. For the first time this season Elliot broke the 100 yard mark. He had the most carries all year with 20 and used those to get 143 on the ground with 1 TD. With a game coming up this weekend vs. the Giants we have to wonder if we’ll see another 100 yard game.
With Williams inactive, Latavius Murray saw his most action of this young season. Although he found the end zone once, we have to think the day was a disappointment for him. He was only able to garner less than 4 yards per carry. If he wants to continue as the main back in Baltimore he’s going to have to do more with each carry.
Defense vs. Position
Something I like to look at each week is where teams are giving up the most points. The charts above are based off of Draftkings scoring. We can see that Jets have some big challenges with Runnings backs. While their number may be skewed a bit by Henry this past weekend, they’ve still given up at least 30 points to running backs each week now. Next week they face a team like the Falcons who have two backs in Davis and Patterson who are an integral part of the offense.
Switching gears to tight ends, no team has given up more fantasy points to them than the Baltimore Ravens. This is even with a down week last weekend for Hockenson. Another team struggling against tight ends is the Houston Texans. They have only one week with less than 20 points given up. Does the combo of Hunter Henry and Jonnu Smith go off this week? The data tells us yes.
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