What We Saw: Week 4

Another wild weekend of football culminated in one of the more memorable games in league history, and we watched all of it.

Ben Brown
What We Saw 3 Years Ago
Series Navigation
Introduction
Jaguars @ Bengals
Football Team @ Falcons
Texans @ Bills
Lions @ Bears
Panthers @ Cowboys
Colts @ Dolphins
Browns @ Vikings
Giants @ Saints
Titans @ Jets
Chiefs @ Eagles
Cardinals @ Rams
Seahawks @ 49ers
Ravens @ Broncos
Steelers @ Packers
Buccaneers @ Patriots

Buccaneers @ Patriots

Final Score: Buccaneers 19, Patriots 17

Writer: Corey Saucier (@Deputy_Commish on Twitter, /u/Lights_Kamara_Action on Reddit)

 

Coming into Sunday night’s game between Tampa Bay and New England, we were all privileged to one of the biggest regular-season storylines in any NFL game that I can remember: QB Tom Brady‘s return to Foxborough, where it all began. Aside from all of the fanfare, we had a wet, rainy, sloppy football game where Brady and the Bucs emerged victorious – not much to anyone’s surprise. The biggest fantasy takeaway of the game may have been New England’s complete inability to run the ball: The Patriots finished with 8 rushes for -1 yards total on the night. Meanwhile, Buccaneers’ RB Leonard Fournette was impressive with 138 total yards on 23 touches. Patriots’ rookie QB Mac Jones stood toe-to-toe with Brady for most of the night, but in the end, Jones couldn’t do quite enough to complete the proverbial passing of the torch on Sunday night. At one point, Jones completed 19 straight passes – the most for a rookie in the NFL in over 30 years, while also matching Tom Brady’s career-high streak. How did this game shake out for your fantasy team? Did it leave you praying for a Monday night miracle? Let’s dive into what we saw:

 

 

 

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

 

Quarterbacks

 

Tom Brady: 22/43, 269 yards

 

It’s tough to even imagine the amount of emotional fortitude necessary for Bucs’ QB Tom Brady to keep his composure on Sunday night. It’s hard to overstate just how much the Patriots organization and Brady mean to each other, and have meant to each other for 20 years now: so when Brady ran through the visiting tunnel at Gilette Stadium for the first time in his illustrious career, there was hardly a dry eye in the house. Brady did lead Tampa to the victory on Sunday night, but he hardly did much at all for your fantasy team. As I mentioned in the opener, the constant rain was clearly a factor in the passing game for both teams. Brady’s 21 incompletions were due to a series of overthrows, drops, and other errant throws where the ball just seemed to sail on Brady. Due to the inclement conditions, Bucs’ head coach Bruce Arians stuck to the safer ground approach to grind out the win. While Brady turned in a less-than-stellar fantasy performance this week, it was a cool moment to see him pass former Saints’ QB Drew Brees for the NFL all-time passing yardage record:

 

 

It was slightly awkward during the telecast because, with the initial spot, it was unclear whether the play broke the record or not. By the time the play was officially announced, Brady was already under center ready to run the next snap. Brady’s managers will hope that he finds his way back to fantasy relevance next week at home against the Dolphins.

 

Running Backs

 

Leonard Fournette: 20 carries, 91 yards | 5 targets, 3 receptions, 47 yards

Ronald Jones II: 6 carries, 25 yards, TD

 

With the rain falling and the wind blowing, the Buccaneers wisely decided to keep the ball in the hands of powerhouse RB Leonard Fournette. While Fournette has still yet to find the end-zone this season, both his 91 rushing yards and his 47 receiving yards were season highs. Although Fournette’s usage so far this season has been inconsistent, Sunday night he was on the field for 81% of Tampa Bay’s offensive snaps – the highest for any RB during Bruce Arians’ tenure. After the game, Fournette gave New England’s defense praise for their “discipline” and mentioned that the Patriots were a 1-3 team that didn’t play like a 1-3 team at all. And we should believe Fournette; let’s not forget that he spent his first several seasons in Jacksonville – he should certainly know what a 1-3 team looks like. While it was mostly Fournette on the ground for Tampa Bay on Sunday night, RB Ronald Jones II got in on the action with this 8-yard TD scamper late in the 3rd quarter:

 

 

Wide Receivers/Tight Ends

 

Mike Evans: 12 targets, 7 receptions, 75 yards

Antonio Brown: 11 targets, 7 reception, 63 yards

Chris Godwin: 5 targets, 3 receptions, 66 yards

Cameron Brate: 6 targets, 2 receptions, 29 yards

 

With a low-scoring, run-heavy gameplan from Tampa Bay, we had a quiet night from this pass-catching group. It was WR Mike Evans who paced the group in targets and receiving yards, but fellow WR Antonio Brown finished right behind him in both categories. Brown could have had an even bigger night – he had multiple drops that hit him in the hands, including this one late in the game for a potential TD:

 

 

While both Evans and Brown found enough volume to produce at least respectable PPR results, it was an especially quiet night for WR Chris Godwin – whose 3 catches and 55 receiving yards were both season-lows for him thus far. This is a group that we know can score a ton of fantasy points, and especially this WR group with TE Rob Gronkowski expected to potentially miss a few weeks with broken ribs. It will be tough to predict target share between the Buccaneers’ ‘Big 3’ WRs, but all of them should be worth at least Flex consideration week to week.

 

New England Patriots

 

Quarterback

 

Mac Jones: 31/40, 275 yards, 2 TD, INT

 

Patriots’ QB Mac Jones faced probably the toughest task of all on Sunday night – beat Tom Brady and disrupt his homecoming return to Foxborough. While Jones couldn’t quite do enough to get the Patriots a win, he did produce his best fantasy outcome so far in his young career. His 2 TD passes were good for his new career-high mark, but we’ll still need to see more from Jones before we can consider him as a starting fantasy QB. Both of Jones’ TD passes were impressive – on his first TD to TE Hunter Henry, Jones progressed through his reads and found Henry just as pressure was getting to him:

 

 

On Jones’ second TD pass late in the game, he threw this play fake so beautifully, everybody in the whole building bought it:

 

 

Running Backs

 

Damien Harris: 4 carries, -4 yards | 2 targets, 2 receptions, 30 yards

Brandon Bolden: 1 carry, 0 yards | 6 targets, 6 receptions, 51 yards

 

As I mentioned above, New England finished Sunday night’s game with a total of -1 rushing yards. Even though they couldn’t get the ground game going, both RB Damien Harris and RB Brandon Bolden contributed significantly in the passing game. While neither found the end-zone or put up much fantasy value, they both made big plays that kept New England in the game late. Harris picked up a nifty first down on this grab-and-go:

 

 

Another downside to such weak RB production from the Patriots was the uncertainty of how RB James White‘s absence will directly affect the New England’s RB rotation. It will be tough to trust any of these guys in your fantasy lineups until this murky situation clears up a bit.

J.J. Taylor fumbled the ball on his only carry of the game, and he is now very much in the dog house as a result. What was once a strength for New England, it seems they now need some help in the RB room.

 

Wide Receivers/Tight Ends

 

Jakobi Meyers: 12 targets, 8 receptions, 70 yards | 2/2, 45 yards

Kendrick Bourne: 5 targets, 5 receptions, 58 yards

Nelson Agholor: 5 targets, 3 receptions, 55 yards

Hunter Henry: 5 targets, 4 receptions, 32 yards, TD

Jonnu Smith: 5 targets, 3 receptions, 14 yards, TD

 

It was a Boston TE party (get it?) on Sunday night as both TE Hunter Henry and TE Jonnu Smith found the end-zone for the first time this season. To this point in the season, neither Henry nor Smith have stood out from each other enough to stake their claim as the ‘fantasy relevant’ TE for New England. WR Jakobi Meyers paced New England’s pass-catchers with 12 targets and 8 receptions – and also 2 pass attempts and completions, including this trick play to set up a go-ahead FG in the 4th quarter:

 

 

WR Kendrick Bourne stepped up nicely for a second-consecutive week after a loss to pass-catching RB James White. Without another back stepping into those vacated targets from White, it appears that Bourne is the most likely to fill in that role, for now.

 

— Corey Saucier– @Deputy_Commish on Twitter, /u/Lights_Kamara_Action on Reddit

Series Navigation
Introduction
Jaguars @ Bengals
Football Team @ Falcons
Texans @ Bills
Lions @ Bears
Panthers @ Cowboys
Colts @ Dolphins
Browns @ Vikings
Giants @ Saints
Titans @ Jets
Chiefs @ Eagles
Cardinals @ Rams
Seahawks @ 49ers
Ravens @ Broncos
Steelers @ Packers
Buccaneers @ Patriots

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