What We Saw: Week 9 2018

Buccaneers vs. Panthers

Buccaneers

Its Ryan Fitzpatrick’s Offense

243 yards (between nine different receivers), four touchdowns, and two interceptions later, Ryan Fitzpatrick earned himself another start. Fitzpatrick underthrew one of those interceptions early in the first and the second was during garbage time. If not for Mike Evans only bringing in 1 of 10 receptions, Fitzpatrick’s yardage would have been much more too. Fitzpatrick is aggressive and throws the ball mid-to-deep – resulting in a league-leading 9.3 yards per completion rate. Fitzpatrick is a good bet most weeks as Tampa Bay is sure to be down and Fitzpatrick will throw for 40+ attempts with a few rushing yards tacked on for good measure.

Beat the Odds by One

Peyton Barber ended up with 11 rushing attempts for 31 yards and no touchdowns. In half as many attempts, Ryan Fitzpatrick had 23 rushing yards. Tampa Bay was down by 28 points during the second quarter as a result the ground game never even sought to materialize, with Barber’s carries split near evenly between halfs. The boom or bust for a touchdown was lower this week than most and moving forward Barber is a matchup stream at-best and with the BYE weeks on their decline, so too should Barber’s usage.

Thriving in the Checkdown

Adam Humphries had a career game bringing in all eight targets for 82 yards and two touchdowns. Humphries has largely occupied the check-down role on Tampa Bay’s offense, but instead of the two to three-yard gains, he has been breaking out into a more consistent fantasy player. Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, and DeSean Jackson will still occupy the primary roles, but necessity has boosted Humphries value. Evans had his worst game of the season and head coach Dirk Koetter placed the blame on Evans play rather than Carolina’s defense saying “That may have been as poor as I’ve seen Mike play in my time here. Typically he has had good days against Bradberry, so we had a lot game-planned for him.”

Glory to the Tight End

O.J. Howard brought in four receptions on six targets for 53 yards and two touchdowns. Carolina kept their streak of tight end touchdowns and Howard once again brought in four receptions for an elite performance. The second touchdown was particularly exciting as it came on a 4th and 3 with seconds to go in the second half. Despite a fluctuating workload, Howard has continued to produce and should be counted on in weeks to come.

-Brennen Gorman

Panthers

BOOM, BUST, SLEEPER: A Brief Review

TE Greg Olsen finished top five at his position this week, hauling in all six of his targets for 76 yards, four first downs, and one eye-popping touchdown. This is the second consecutive solid performance for Olsen, who’s finally looking like his 2014-2016 self. Considering Olsen tied for the team lead in targets and finished as a top five tight end for the first time since Week 15 of the 2017 season, I would call it a successful Boom prediction.

WR Devin Funchess was about 6 inches short of making my Bust prediction wrong for the second straight week, but without a touchdown his four catches for 45 yards was not even enough for a top 40 finish in PPR scoring formats. The lack of results is not worth panicking over though, as Funchess still received 20% of the targets thrown by QB Cam Newton in the game. If anything, now is the time to trade for Funchess, as owners may be worried about his serviceability for landing them a playoff spot and his schedule is very favorable for the rest of the season.

If you’re one of the lucky readers to benefit from listening to my WR DJ Moore Sleeper pick last week (WR18) and WR Curtis Samuel this week (WR10), I appreciate both your consistent readership and faith in my ability to predict how OC Norv Turner will run the offense in the coming game. As nice as it feels to have been right twice, I acknowledge sleeper picks are flukey and highly volatile. I hope to continue to do well with these, but there are so many weapons on this offense there really is no way to predict with certainty what the usage of these quaternary receiving options will be. I mean seriously, would anyone aside from Norv have seen a fake handoff, double reverse coming?

What’s Ron Rivera’s favorite letter? C

I hope you traded for RB Christian McCaffrey prior to this past Sunday’s game. This one game will not make him untouchable, but you certainly can’t get him at a discount after he finishes as the #3 running back with 157 total yards and two touchdowns. McCaffrey looked electric as he usually does, but there were flashes during the game he looked more like a power back. Both of his touchdown runs came on goal-to-go situations, which is a great sign for someone who was getting his goal line carries vultured by Newton, and even on some of his blocking assignments he was showcasing strength that’s typically overlooked.

Cam extended his interception-less game streak to three and finished with an efficient 247 yards on 25 attempts. He didn’t have the most efficient day running the football (lowest YPC of the year), but it was his fourth straight week with at least 21 fantasy points. He’s currently the #4 QB in fantasy football, and very close on the heels of QB Matt Ryan and QB Jared Goff who are ranked #2 and #3 respectively.

What’s Steve Wilks’ least favorite letter? H

See Brennen’s Bucs piece above.

-Alex Drennan