Week six is mostly in the books, and we have a lot of new stuff to digest on our plate. Caleb Williams went across the pond and dominated the Jags, the Texans’ wide receivers did double-duty in beating down the Patriots, and the Browns might just be worthless for fantasy football at this point. Let’s take a look at those items to see if any of them are reality, or worth worrying about.
Is Caleb Williams HIM?!
Caleb Williams had himself quite a day out in Jolly Olde England. He finished the day with four touchdowns (which was a D.J. Moore forearm away from being five), 226 passing yards and one pick. He was successful on 62% of his plays, as the Bears dog walked the Jaguars. While this can certainly be attributed to the Jaguars passing defense, can we attribute it to Caleb Williams getting comfortable, as well?
First, I want to acknowledge how truly terrible the Jaguars have been this season. They allow the most fantasy points per game to opposing quarterbacks, with three straight signal callers topping 23.5 fantasy points against them. Granted, that group included Josh Allen and C.J. Stroud, but through six games, Caleb Williams arguably had the best game against this defense. At worst, he had the second-best.
Caleb Williams was slinging it into tight-window throws all game, and finished the game with a 16.1% completion rate over expectation. That is to say, his 79.3% completion rate in this game would have been 63.2% with most quarterbacks under center. This was the highest CPOE allowed by the Jaguars so far this season, notching a 3.3% CPOE higher than Josh Allen, the second-highest QB, and 12.8% higher than the average CPOE allowed by this defense. That is to say: he was slinging it. His only downside was his EPA/Play was only 0.53, which was far behind Josh Allen’s 0.72. But, 0.53 is second place by a wide margin, as third place is C.J. Stroud’s week two 0.28 CPOE.
So, Caleb Williams appears to be hitting his groove. He struggled to start the season but will put together back-to-back top-twelve games with the Commanders, Cardinals, and Patriots on the menu. That is to say: he’s dealing, and there’s very little in front of him that will make me consider benching him.
Are Stefon Diggs & Tank Dell Must-Start Without Nico Collins?
The Houston Texans put Nico Collins on IR with a hamstring injury, meaning that he will miss (at least) three more games after Sunday’s Texans-Patriots tilt. The Texans’ WR1 left Stefon Diggs and Tank Dell to tend shop in his absence, and through one week they’ve done just that. While Joe Mixon had the biggest day out of everyone on the Texans’ offense, Diggs and Dell both feasted: Stefon Diggs led the team in yardage, finishing with 6/77/1 on 9 targets, and Dell led the team in targets and receptions, finishing with 7/57/1 on 7 targets. Dell got off to a hot start, scoring the first touchdown of the game, and Diggs got in on the action in the third quarter, putting the Texans up 21-7 at the beginning of the second half.
The production was nice, especially considering that the Patriots pass defense has been middle of the pack this season, allowing three touchdowns and two 100+ yard games to the position so far this year. But, I’m more interested in the usage: Tank Dell finished with a 29% target share, and Stefon Diggs with a 22% target share (Dalton Schultz split the difference with a 25.8% target share). Through the first five weeks of the season, with Nico Collins garnering a team-high 23.2% target share, Diggs carried a 21% share, and Tank Dell only had a 13.3% target share. Schultz finished with 11.6% in those games.
So, what does this tell us? First of all, Stefon Diggs is what he’s always been. He soaked up about 22% of the target share with Nico Collins on the field, and nothing much about that changed without Nico. So, you can deploy him as normal. But Tank Dell took a huge step forward in target share this week, more than doubling his weekly average target share. You can’t bench anyone with a 29% target share, and his upcoming matchups (Packers, Colts, Jets, Lions, and Cowboys) are all mostly beatable through the air. Tank Dell is must start for as long as Nico Collins is on the shelf.
Are the Browns Cooked?
There are a myriad of statistics to tell you that the Cleveland Browns are cooked. I’m partial to the following from Austin Gayle of The Ringer:
Is it good that Deshaun Watson is worse than seven of the biggest busts of the last quarter-century? Is that something we want to see happen? And Kevin Stefanski is not benching Deshaun Watson, likely because Jimmy Haslam is making him wear the Watson decision and go down with the ship this year. So, we aren’t losing Deshaun Watson anytime soon. And things are truly horrendous under Deshaun Watson. As a unit, the Browns have been dreadful for fantasy football with Watson at the helm.
Only three Browns have finished inside the top ten at their position: David Njoku in week one (9th), Jerome Ford in week two (9th), and Amari Cooper in week three. Deshaun Watson is currently QB30 in passing yards per game, 46th in yards per pass attempt, and he leads the NFL in sacks. There just isn’t enough to go around in this offense for anyone to be reasonably, reliably used. The Browns are completely cooked as long as Deshaun Watson is at the helm, and Amari Cooper is likely the only one to get out of this unscathed. On average, the top running back for the Browns finishes as RB26 (though this changes week-to-week), the top receiver finishes as WR30 (which, again, changes week-to-week), and given that they’ve been without David Njoku for all but two games this season, we won’t talk about the tight end.
Maybe Nick Chubb, maybe… But other than that, this team is cooked.
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/David_Njoku_%2851654870984%29.jpg, cropped under CC BY SA 2.0]
