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Welcome to the Week 1 edition of The Inside Look for the 2022 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.
With the completion of the Monday Night game between the Broncos and Seahawks, Week 1 is finally over. And what a week it was!
Let’s dig into the data!
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 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.
Of the top 10 receivers in terms of targets this past week, 4 were new weapons in new cities. Davante Adams led the way this week with 17 targets. Adams and Derek Carr clicked instantly as he went for 141 yards on 10 receptions and even found the endzone. Adams’s 17 targets were nearly half of the passes thrown by Carr. It’s clear right from the start that the Raiders’ offense will go through Adams. Adams will have the benefit of facing off against a Cardinals team in Week 2 that saw their defense give up 360 passing yards, more than any team in the league.
A.J. Brown was another new face in a new city as the former Titans receiver made his Eagles debut. Brown’s 13 targets were the most of any Eagles player. His final stat line in Week 1 was 10 receptions for 155 yards. Although he didn’t find the end zone in Week 1, the Eagles were able to win in a shootout vs. the Lions. Up next will be a date with the Minnesota Vikings. The Vikings were middle of the pack this week against the pass, giving up 260 passing yards.
A mainstay of this article from last year, Cooper Kupp went out and did Cooper Kupp-type things on Thursday night. While the rest of the Super Bowl Champion Los Angeles Rams struggled mightily in Week 1, Kupp was the bright spot of the night. He was targeted 15 times and caught 13 of them for 128 yards and a TD. Stafford and the Rams will look to get back on track next week vs. a Falcons team that gave up 2 passing TD this weekend.
With the Broncos down seemingly the entire game, Russel Wilson went with a pass-heavy offense and that included Javonte Williams. Williams led all backs in Week 1 with 12 targets. Of those 12 targets, he was able to reel in 11 of them for 65 yards.
When it comes to pass-catching running backs, Joe Mixon is normally at the top of the list. Mixon ended Sunday with 9 targets and was able to reel in 7 of them for 63 receiving yards. Some of the extra targets that Mixon received this weekend were partly due to Tee Higgins missing most of the game with a concussion. It will be interesting to see in Week 2 if he has that big of a target share should Higgins return. Up next, the Bengals will face off against the Cowboys in Week 2.
With the Rams down most of the game, Stafford was forced the throw the ball quite often. Only a handful of QB’s threw the ball more than Stafford this weekend. Kupp was near the top of the list in targets for receivers, but Tyler Higbee was all the way at the top of the list for tight ends and targets. Although Higbee led all tight ends in targets, he was only able to catch 5 of them for 39 yards. Higbee owners are hopeful that the targets will continue in Week 2, but more hopeful that he’ll catch a few more than he did in Week 1.
After a solid rookie season, Pat Freiermuth picked up right where he left off. His 10 targets trailed only Higbee. He was able to catch 5 of the 10 targets and finish with 75 yards. Next up for Freiermuth and the Steelers will be a matchup with the Patriots.
It was the Saquon Barkley show on Sunday, on the ground and in the air. Daniel Jones only threw the ball 21 times on Sunday, but nearly a third of those targets went to Barkley. Finally healthy, Barkley is back to being the focal point of this Giants offense. His 7 targets led the team and Jones targeted his running backs a total 8 times.
Of the 38 passes Trevor Lawrence threw on Sunday, more than 70% went to his wide receivers. He clicked instantly with his shiny new weapon as Christian Kirk accounted for 12 of his targets. Zay Jones wasn’t too far behind that number with 9 himself. In what will be a pass-heavy offense this season, we can feel comfortable using his receivers because we know they will get plenty of looks.
Jonathan Taylor picked up right where he left off. Taylor rushed 31 times on Sunday for 161 yards and 1 TD. If you were lucky enough to snag him in season-long drafts or were able to keep him from last year, consider yourself extremely lucky. If he isn’t already, he’s on his way to becoming the top back in the league. In Week 2 the Colts will face off against a Commanders team that gave up only 66 yards on the ground in Week 1.
Joe Mixon had not only a ton of targets on Sunday but also a ton of touches. He trailed only Taylor on Sunday. It was all good news though as he had one of the lowest yards per carry of any of the top backs. On 27 carries, he finished with just 82 yards.
Is this the Saquon Barkley the Giants were hoping for when they drafted him? Barkley had one of the best games in his career Sunday. On 18 carries, he finished with 164 yards on the ground and found the endzone. Finally healthy, Barkley will look to surpass the 1,000-yard rushing mark for the first time since 2019. He’s well on his way after a great Week 1.
The ‘Playbook’ as I like to call it shows a breakdown of the play splits that teams used this past weekend.
With the weather being just absolutely awful, the Bears ran the ball nearly 70% of the time on Sunday. As the weather gets better for them, I’m sure we’ll see Justin Fields throwing the ball just a bit more than he did on Sunday.
Facing off against a tough run defense in the Ravens and also being down the majority of the game, Joe Flacco and the Jets went with a pass-heavy offense. They threw the ball nearly 80% of the time. Flacco threw the ball 59 times on Sunday, finishing with 307 yards.
Another team that had a pass-heavy offense was the Las Vegas Raiders. They threw the ball just a bit more than 70% of the time on Sunday. This is a trend that will more than likely continue as Carr will continue to throw heavily at Adams.
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Today I’ll be highlighting one of my favorite contests on MKF, the Touchdown Dance. This Sunday MKF is running a special contest where if you play in a $5+ Touchdown Dance contest and all 3 of your players score a touchdown you get share of the jackpot. Today’s jackpot is $5,000!
Let’s dig in and see if we can find sometouchdowns!
Jonathan Taylor vs. Buffalo Bills
Jonathan Taylor is playing some insane football right now. He’s on a stretch we haven’t seen in quite some time. Since week 14 he has 14 rushing touchdowns and 2 receiving touchdowns. Over the last 2 weeks he rushed for 5 touchdowns against 2 of the better rush defenses in the league.
This week he gets a matchup vs. a Texans team that is one of only 6 teams to give up double digit rushing touchdowns on the year. Look, anything can happen on any given Sunday. But we’re talking about one of the best backs in the business against one of the worst rush defenses in the league. Nothing is ever a lock, but Taylor is as close to a lock for a touchdown as there is this weekend. Confidence Level – Bet the farm.
Joe Mixon vs. San Diego Chargers
Another team that has really struggled against the run? Well look no farther than the San Diego Chargers. On the year only the Jets have given up more rushing touchdowns than the Chargers. Chargers have given up 14 rushing touchdowns this season. They haven’t gone a game without giving up without giving up a rushing touchdown since week 4 against the Raiders.
If we switch gears to talk about Mixon, well he’s been damn solid. Over the past 2 weeks he’s rushed for close to 300 yards and has 4 touchdowns. He’s scored multiple touchdowns in 4 straight and has found the end zone in all but 2 games this season. The stars have aligned for Mixon and he has a solid chance to make it 5 straight with multiple touchdowns. Confidence Level – High
Miles Sanders vs. New York Jets
This pick is more matchup based than it is talent based as Sanders has yet to find the end zone this season. Jets are one of the worst teams at defending the rush. Over the past 4 weeks they’ve given up over 500 yards rushing and 6 touchdowns to running backs. Everything is pointing to Sanders having a great game today.
The Eagles will be without Jordan Howard and their “star” QB in Jalen Hurts. All of those extra chances, especially in the red zone, should funnel to Sanders today. If Sanders finally gets more than a couple of red zone looks today, he should be able to finally find the end zone. Confidence Level – It’s the Eagles so I’m going with Medium
Other guys I also liks this week are Alexander Mattison, Mike Evans, and Leonard Fournette. With some really bad offenses on the field today, we should see a healthy amount of touchdowns.
Good luck and hope to share the $5k with you!
Make sure you follow me on Twitter at @rangerzfan79 and be sure to sign up for an ALL ACCESS GOLD ACCOUNT here at Win Daily Sports. Gain access to our Projection Models and jump into our Discord where we will have our experts talking plays across every sport and slate! !
We are here ladies and gentlemen! Week one is upon us and we have loads of content coming out over the next few days to help you take down your GPP’s and cash in your 50/50’s and Double-Ups. Be sure to hop in discord to get all of the updated information leading up to the first kick. And check out Adam’s fantastic Game by Game breakdown for week 1. I will not waste a ton of your time here as I know what you are here for so enjoy the WDS: Week 1 NFL Running Back DFS Breakdown 9.12
I am going to put this at the top of my articles until the status quo changes. If you want to play Christian McCaffrey and can afford him, go for it. His floor/ceiling combination is unmatched from week to week. This just saves me a few minutes for every Running Back DFS Breakdown just stating the obvious.
***Note to all new players: Any players that may list in cash are viable options for GPP play. Just understand that Cash plays are likely to have higher ownership.***
While much of the attention will go to running backs like Dalvin Cook (17.64% Ownership), Christian McCaffrey (22.21% Ownership), and Alvin Kamara (24.12% Ownership) there is a certain rushing title winner who is projected under 8% ownership. While everyone is concerned with the coaching changes for the Titans and the little red 10 next to Arizona’s ranking we find a prime GPP pivot to take advantage of. The Cardinals are 10th worst in rushing 1st downs allowed (118), 7th worst in YPC (4.6), and 11th worst in 1st Down % (27.1). Now, throw in the 3rd fastest pace, aggressive blitz tendencies, and that the Cardinals spend more time in nickel packages than any other team (4-2-5 base, cover one) and we can begin to see how a beast like Henry can break this GPP slate wide open.
All I needed was to see him in the final preseason game for a few snaps just to make sure his knee was ok and I knew he would end up somewhere in my article in week one. The Lions are a mess and the Niners are one of the most prolific rushing franchises over the last several seasons. Trey Sermon is going to get plenty of work, that much is certain, but Mostert does not need 18-20 carries to smash value. Week one last season, Mostert, on 15 carries only had 56 yards rushing but caught four passes for 95 yards and a touchdown. The man is a Lamborghini. Sure, something will almost certainly happen that sidelines him at some point, but while he is healthy you should have him sprinkled into your GPP builds. Especially when they are expected to get ahead against weak run defenses.
I do not know why his ownership is so low. Atlanta’s defensive personnel can not keep up with this dynamic playmaker, at least not yet. I think people remember the last couple of seasons where the previous coaching regime would rotate backs with no rhyme or reason. Take a breath folks, Nick Sirianni is coming from Indy and he does not share that thought process. Miles will get more reps this year in both carries and targets in 2021 if Sanders stays healthy this should be a career year in terms of volume and production. Dean Pees (ATL Defensive Coordinator) loves, loves, loves blitzing from the secondary, and if Hurts sees that, Miles Sanders can be wide open on those blitz packages and running to daylight. Trust me here folks. Get a couple of shares of him in your GPP’s this week and you will be glad that you did.
Also Consider: Jonathan Taylor, Aaron Jones, Chase Edmonds
Pricing for both Draftkings and FanDuel came out around a month ago and even at that time I was eyeing Robinson as a potential GPP play. Etienne is a different kind of back and J-Rob, at least for week one, was always fairly safe. Texans are a disaster on both sides of the ball thanks to the Bill O’Brien era and my early script included a heavy dose of running the clock down into the second half. That has not changed since pricing came out, and now we have no Etienne to compete with for workload. Robinson averaged 17.8 carries and 4.3 targets per game in 2020. This year the Jags have a better O-Line, more WR depth, and their franchise QB who already looks like he belongs, so defenses can no longer cheat to stop the run game. Robinson should have a field day in week one with no real competition for touches and targets against arguably the worst franchise in the NFL.
If the Vikings do not get behind early there is one thing that you can be assured of. Dalvin Cook will carry the ball 20+ times and see anywhere from 3-5 Targets in the passing game. I think the Bengals will be improved this season but Burrow will likely be rusty in the early going and the offensive line will take some time to gel. That means stalled drives and a game script where Dal can feast. The Bengals year in and year out have a defense that gets holes ripped through it on the ground and in 2020 they were second worst, giving up 5.1 yards per carry for almost 2,400 yards (fourth-worst). With no Irv Smith and Kyle Rudolph out of the picture, Cook’s already league-leading red zone rush attempts (68 attempts for 13 TD’s) will almost certainly increase and it will be immediate.
The Chargers traveling to the east coast is bad, playing that game at 1:00 PM EST/10:00 AM PST is even worse, and in my opinion not getting any of your starter’s reps in the preseason is a strike three. I fully expect the Chargers to play a flat game against last season’s DROY Chase Young and the rest of that tough Washington defense. Staley’s defensive scheme for LAC (at least up front) is to have three down linemen tight to the formation forcing the ball handler to go outside. That spells disaster as Antonio Gibson is incredibly quick outside of the tackles and was regularly used in off-tackle runs as well as screenplays in 2020. A quick note on Gibson, he played almost half of the season with a foot injury and he has already told us that he was 100% good now.
Also Consider: Alvin Kamara, Joe Mixon
It is finally time folks and I wish you all great success in in 2021 and beyond and our Win Daily Sports: Week 1 NFL Running Back DFS Breakdown 9.12 helps you towards your goals. It is time to start digging into DFS and make sure that we have our processes in place for a successful 2021 NFL campaign. If you have any questions about the Running Back DFS Breakdown, I will be available in the WinDaily Discord chat. Don’t forget to subscribe to the WinDaily Youtube channel and follow me @stoweby and @WinDailySports on Twitter to stay current and up to date on all of our fresh new content!
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