This article usually gets to you on Monday mornings, but I spent Sunday watching the 49ers lose and getting my brain boiled in the Santa Clara heat (it was 104 on my weather app… 104! A guy almost died of heat stroke in my section and was whisked away by medics!). So, I had to give my brain a chance to cool off, lest I go in hot-headed with some week five reactions (or overreactions?). Let’s dive in, shall we?
Is Josh Downs Just a Blip?
Josh Downs missed the first two weeks of the season with an injury and has 5, 9, and 12 targets in the three games he’s played this season—two with Joe Flacco. Therein lies the rub: Josh Downs and Joe Flacco make sweet music together. The easy answer to Josh Downs not getting statistics in his first game back from injury (5 targets, 3 catches, and 22 yards) is that the Colts were protecting him, giving him limited snaps. The opposite is true: he played in 57% of their snaps, which is within a stone’s throw of his snap share the other two games (62% and 61%). So, it wasn’t that the Colts were protecting him.
Anthony Richardson just plain didn’t have any interest in using him. Richardson left week four early, after contributing one target, one catch, and 11 yards to Josh Downs. Flacco then went on to finish 7/8 for 71 yards and a touchdown while going toward Downs, something that continued in week five. Downs finished this week with 12 targets, 9 catches, and 69 yards. He led the team in both targets and air yards in week five with Flacco and was the first target on one-third of Flacco’s dropbacks.
But, there are a couple of problems with this breakout: first, Anthony Richardson looms. Should he return, he is going to take a back seat to Richardson’s preferred targets: Adonai Mitchell, Alec Pierce, and the ground vaguely near a receiver. Richardson also throws a lot less than Flacco, as he’s topped 20 pass attempts just once in three full games this season, and Flacco topped 25 pass attempts in both his games this year. So, should Anthony Richardson return soon, I don’t see Josh Downs continuing this torrid run. If Richardson doesn’t return, the Colts also have two rough pass defenses on the schedule coming up: Tennessee in week six (32nd in fantasy points allowed to receivers) and Miami in week seven (28th in fantasy points allowed to receivers).
While I don’t doubt the Josh Downs talent, I don’t think he’s someone you can pick up and play outside of desperate scenarios. But, I would still stash him; Anthony Richardson is incredibly reckless, and Flacco could be back at any point once they turn back to A-Rich.
Is Travis Kelce Back?
I am writing this as Jake Haener vomits all over himself valiantly leads the Saints on a “making the game respectable” final drive. Travis Kelce is currently sitting on the bench, smiling, thinking about giving a smooch to the most famous pop star in the world, and he has 10 targets, 9 catches, and 70 yards on the week. This comes on the heels of a 9 target, 7 catch, and 89-yard effort in week four. It looks like Travis Kelce is back, but is he really back?
Well, let’s look at what’s changed. Most importantly, two things in particular changed: the loss of Rashee Rice and Isiah Pacheco. Rice, Pacheco, and Kelce occupy the same area of the field, as all have average depths of target under 8. They are all underneath release valves for Patrick Mahomes, and losing Rashee Rice has been a boon for Travis Kelce. In the first three weeks, Kelce ranked third on the team in target share, but his 12% target share was so far behind Rashee Rice’s 31% share that it didn’t really matter. Right ahead of him? Isiah Pacheco and his 15.1% target share. Now, both are gone, and the Chiefs need to go somewhere. While Carson Steele, Kareem Hunt, and Samaje Perine have soaked up Pacheco’s targets, Kelce just upgraded to Rashee Rice’s targets: he had a 31% target share in week four, and a 25.6% target share in week five. He led the team in targets in week five, with JuJu Smith-Schuster (8 targets) and Xavier Worthy (6 targets) finishing second and third.
25.6% target share is elite at tight end, and that’s been the worst of his two games. It’s also beyond elite and would have led the NFL in 2023, 2022, and 2021. The increased target rate was all Kelce needed, as he was still very good on a per-target basis, ranking ninth in yards per target, tenth in yards per catch, and eleventh in catch rate among the 24 tight ends with at least 15 targets. You can ride with Travis Kelce, as the Pacheco and Rice injuries changed the tenor of his season.
Can We Trust the Darnell Mooney Breakout?
It might be hard to remember all the way back to Thursday Night Football, but Darnell Mooney finished with 9 catches for 105 yards and 2 touchdowns on 16 targets. This is something that we really should have seen coming when he moved from the Bears to the Falcons, upgrading from Justin Fields to Kirk Cousins. I don’t always trust vacated air yards, as they need something to change to cash them in, but Darnell Mooney ranked top-five in unrealized air yards last season. He also ranked first in true catch rate last year. Both indicated that Mooney was a good receiver, but his quarterback betrayed him. Not so fast in Atlanta.
While Cousins didn’t target Mooney in week one (just 3 targets), Mooney averaged 37 targets in weeks two through five, on a 23.7% target share and 38.7% air yards share. Those numbers are roughly analogous to 2023 Chris Olave (23.7% target share, and 39.2% air yards share). I don’t expect a ton of nights like Thursday, as his massive numbers came on the back of 58 pass attempts from Kirk Cousins, the most of his career, and just the third time that he’s topped 55 pass attempts.
The good news is, however, that he still mustered a manageable target share (27%) on Thursday, which is roughly in line with his last four weeks, where he’s finished as WR18, WR27, WR49, and WR3. You can trust the Darnell Mooney breakout, as he is a constant in the offense, and leads the team in routes, average depth of target, and air yards share, and is second in targets per route run, target share, and yards per route run. He’s all over the offense, and he should be a priority pickup for you this week in fantasy leagues.
