Jared Levitt 
Welcome to the Week 8 Edition of By The Numbers for the 2024 NFL Season. This is a series that will be data driven 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 who may have underperformed or cause you to rethink some of the spots you may have taken.
Let’s dig in to the data!
Wide Receiver Targets
Before we dig into 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 opportunities more often than not creates production. The more targets a player gets, the better chance there is that the player will return value.
Joe Burrow continues to dismantle the Ravens any time he plays them. Ja’Marr Chase was the big beneficiary of that this week as he was targeted a league-high 17 times. The 17 targets were by far a season-high, as were his 11 receptions and 264 receiving yards. His next closest game to that this season was 10 receptions for 193 yards. Does anyone want to guess who that was against? Anyone? Buehler? You got it, the Ravens. In Week 11 he’ll have a tougher task as the Chargers are much better against the pass than the Ravens.
Puka Nacua had his highest target game of the season as Matthew Stafford threw the ball his way 14 times. He was able to corral 9 of them but fell just short of the century mark with 98 yards. While his targets are up and so are his receptions, Nacua is still looking for this first touchdown of the season. He’ll look to get in Week 11 against a Patriots D that has given up 3 receiving touchdowns to Wide Receivers over the last 4 weeks.
Davante Adams is starting to see some more targets come his way now that he’s playing with his old pal in Aaron Rodgers. That said, the targets didn’t really matter much because his productivity was mostly zilch this weekend. He ended up with 6 catches for just 31 yards. His 31 yards were nearly a season-low. He’ll look to become more productive in Week 11 as the Jets take on a pretty bad Colts team
Running Back Targets
For the first ime in a while, we had multiple backs with double-digit targets. Coming into Week 10, Chase Brown had just 26 targets for the season. He more than doubled his previous career-high in targets this past week as he ended the game with 11 targets. You already know that Joe Burrow pretty much threw the ball the entire game. Brown was one of the biggest beneficiaries of that. He had another productive weekend, finishing with at least 23 DK points for the second straight week. He’ll have an ok matchup in Week 11 as the Bengals take on the Chargers in what will be more of a neutral matchup for Brown.
While the Broncos have been great at stopping the run, they have not been good at stopping running backs from catching the ball. No team has given up more receiving yards to running backs over the last 4 weeks than the Broncos. That helped Mahomes target Kareem Hunt as they ended the game with 10 targets. He was able to corral 7 of them for season-high 65 receiving yards. He’ll have another chance to produce next week as the Bills have been below-average against pass-catching backs of late.
Tight End Targets
Unlike weeks past, this was not the week of the Tight End. Only one Tight End this week had double-digit targets and that was Jason Kelce’s brother Travis doing the dirty work. Even at the ripe old age of 35, Travis Kelce just continues to perform a super high level. While he started the season out slow, he’s had at least 10 targets in 4 of his last 5 games and has had at least 20 DK points in 3 straight. He scored his second TD of the season this past week and he’ll look to continue to dominate in Week 11 against their perpetual rival in the Bills.
Target Share (minimum 30 passes)
As we can see from above, no one targeted their Tight Ends more than Sam Darnold did. Of Darnold’s 38 attempts this week, 15 went to the combination of TJ Hockenson and Josh Oliver. While this ended up as a winning formula, it was more so due to the terrible play of the Jaguars than it was the solid play of Darnold as he didn’t throw a single TD reception, but he did throw 3 passes that were caught by the Jags. Yikes!
We’ll mention the Chiefs here because they were second in TE share and first in RB share. Kelce and Hunt combined for more than half of all the targets this weekend for the Chiefs. The Chiefs just continue to win and they’ll look to win again this weekend vs. the Bills.
Giants, lol! What a way to lose this weekend. A fumble in OT. That my friends does not happen often. Daniel Jones tenure as the Giants QB is more than likely coming to a conclusion. I would not be surprised to see them bench him going forward for Drew Lock to ensure he does not get hurt and get locked into that massive contract for next season. Oh, he also targeted his receivers quite a bit this weekend. 23 of his 32 passes were to his receivers.
Carries
Just a few days after signing his contract, Hubbard proved all the naysayers wrong as he went on to have a magical Sunday in Germany. Coming into the week he had a season-high of just 21 carries. He torched that number with 28 this past weekend. He also set a season-high with 153 rushing yards and 1 TD. His TD helped him to set a career-high in rushing TD’s with 6 on the year. He’ll get a breather this weekend as the Panthers are off in Week 11. They’ll need all the rest in the world as they’ll take on the Chiefs in Week 12.
Next up in carries is the legendary Joe Mixon. Mixon just continues to be a workhorse. He now has 99 carries over the last 4 weeks and this was the third time in 4 games he finished with 25 carries. That said, his output was not what we normally expect to see out of him. His 46 rushing yards were the second-fewest he’s had all year. He did however find the endzone yet again. He’ll look to rebound as the Texans face off against inter-state rivals in the Cowboys.
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