Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Week 6 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 on value.
After missing weeks 4 and 5 with an injury Sterling Shepard was back this week and was tied with Justin Jefferson and Courtland Sutton for the most targets this week. Of the three players that had 14 targets this week, Courtland Sutton was the most productive has he finished with 94 yards receiving and was the only one to find the end zone.
The guy that really had a big bump in performance was Adam Thielen. After having pretty quiet weeks in week 4 and 5 Thielen had his most productive week since week 1. He was targeted 13 times and finished with 11 receptions for 126 yards and 1 TD. Cousins has some dangerous weapons and if Thielen is on his game, a combo of Jefferson and Thielen will be lethal during a playoff push.
Another guy that rebounded after a couple of down weeks was Mr Cooper Kupp. With a match up against a poor Giants defense, Kupp found the end zone twice and finished with 130 yards. Up next week is a match up against another poor defense in Detroit.
Running Back Targets
Myself included, many people used Terry McLaurin in DFS yesterday thinking he’d have a monster game against a suspect Chiefs D. Well, Heinicke flipped the script on us and it was actually his teammate J.D. McKissic that led all of Washington and all running backs with 10 targets. Going into this week he had only averaged 4 targets per game over the last week 4 weeks. McKissic was able to convert on 8 of the targets for 65 yards.
This past Thursday night we saw a monster performance from Leonard Fournette. He was a machine on the ground and in the air. He had arguably his best receiving game of the season as he finished with 6 catches and 46 yards and his 6 targets were the second most he has had this season and his 6 receptions were the most he’s had. Buccaneers have a solid all around offense, but they will only go as far as Fournette will take them.
Tight End Targets
To no one’s surprise, Travis Kelce led all Tight Ends in targets this week with 11, up from the 8 he had been averaging over the past 4 weeks. While Kelce didn’t find the end zone this weekend, he had a solid game as he finished the game with 8 receptions and 99 yards. The Chiefs got a much needed win this week and they’ll need a repeat performance next week against a bad Titans D.
Mike Gesicki eclipsed the 100 yard mark for the first time this year. This week he finished with 8 catches on 9 targets with 115 yards receiving. Over the past 5 weeks Gesicki hasn’t been targeted less than 6 times. Whether it has been Tua or Brissett behind the center, Gesicki continues to be an important option in this offense. Next week may prove tough for him as the Falcons have been better than average vs. Tight Ends.
Quarterback Target Share
As I noted above, Heinicke really threw everyone a curveball this weekend. We all expected a huge game from Terry McLaurin, but it was J.D. McKissic who was the focal point of Heinicke’s passing game. Heinicke threw the ball 39 times yesterday, with more than a third of his passes going to his running backs.
Tua Tagovailoa made his return after a 3 week absence and it was Mike Gesicki that was the biggest beneficiary. Tua threw the ball 47 times this weekend against the Jaguars. Of those 47, more than a third went to his crop of Tight Ends. Against a Falcons team that isn’t too bad vs. Tight Ends it will be interesting to see if he changes the script a little bit next weekend and funnels a few more targets to a guy like Gaskin.
Finally, let’s talk about Kirk Cousins. He threw for over 370 yards yesterday on 45 attempts. He had a very clear plan and that was to throw the ball to Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen as much as possible. Both of those guys combined for 27 of his passes. All in all, 37 of his 45 attempts went to WR’s.
Running Back Touches
The only reason we don’t see Derrick Henry on this chart is due to the fact he hasn’t played yet this week. After missing last week due to injury, Dalvin Cook came back roaring with 29 attempts and 140 yards rushing. He also found the end zone once. This was the most carries he had all year so we know that he may finally be healthy after sitting out 2 of the last 3 weeks.
With CEH sidelined, it was Darrel Williams that was asked to carry the load. Coming into the week Williams only had 1 game with double digit touches. This week he had 21. While he was only able to muster 62 yards rushing, he made a huge impact as he found the end zone twice on Sunday. CEH is going to miss the next two weeks at the least, so if you’re a Darrel Williams fantasy owner enjoy the run while it lasts.
Not on here because he only had 14 carries is Jonathan Taylor. He didn’t quite crack the top 10 in carries, he but he was number 1 in regards to production as he finished the day with 145 yards rushing and 2 touch downs. Taylor gets a much tougher assignment next week vs. a 49ers team that is better than average against the run.
Playbook
The ‘Playbook’ as I like to call it shows a breakdown of the play splits that teams used this past weekend. If we look at a team like the Packers, we can see that they ran the ball almost 60% of the time while only throwing 40% of the time. Between Jones and Dillon the Packers ran the ball 24 times while Rodgers only threw the ball 21 times this week.
Another team that relied heavily on the run was Indianapolis. They ran the ball 26 times compared to just 18 passing attempts. While Taylor was the main back this week, both Hines and Mack also saw a handful of attempts.
Conversely, the Giants and Daniel Jones took the air way more. With no Barkley this week and down most of the game, Jones threw the ball more than 70% of the time this week. Until Barkley is back we have to anticipate this being the norm.
First Look Wrap Up
We are now more than a third of the way through this 2021 season. Some things have become more apparent than others while injuries continue to play a role in our weekly selections. I hope that the data helps you build either season long lineups or for DFS.
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