Week twelve made us do a lot that we are not proud of. Namely, things like starting Theo Johnson, Michael Wilson, and Devaughn Vele. But, it’s in the rearview mirror, and we are on to Cincinnati (returning from Bye). Thanksgiving is coming up next week, which means that the fantasy football playoffs are right around the corner. Let’s take some higher-level looks at some players moving forward for your fantasy football leagues.
Did Bucky Irving Take Rachaad White’s Job?
We once thought that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had a three-headed backfield. Bucky Irving and Sean Tucker had their career games back in week six, in Rachaad White’s stead. Sean Tucker quickly fell by the wayside (two goal-line carries in this week’s game notwithstanding). However, as the Buccaneers came out of their bye, it appeared as though the tide had shifted, and shifted into being a one-player backfield. Bucky Irving finished the game with 11 carries for 84 yards (and a TD), as well as catching six of six targets for 64 yards. It was a massive game for Irving, and getting dragged down at the one two different times kept him from having a truly monstrous fantasy day. Those two receptions resulted in Sean Tucker scoring a touchdown, and fumbling, on two different drives.
This was all before Baker Mayfield handed the ball to Rachaad White, who subsequently fumbled the exchange, and whose fumble almost killed Baker Mayfield. Then, Giants fans headed to the exits, so it’s safe to say that everything that happened after that point was garbage time. After that fumble, White had 8 carries for 28 yards, a touchdown, and the fumble noted above (alongside 1/1/10 through the air). Sean Tucker had two carries inside the five, four carries overall, and three yards and a score (alongside 1/1/7 through the air).
While Irving and White both scored touchdowns, and both had 12 carries, you can see that White’s carries came when the Buccaneers called off the dogs. Before that point, Bucky Irving led the way in snaps, routes, targets, and carries. Despite White being the traditional pass-catching back, the Buccaneers even moved away from that, with White getting 11 routes to Irving’s 20.
The usage in this game indicates that this is now Bucky Irving’s backfield and Rachaad White is taking the backseat to being the third-down back.
Are the Giants’ Options Droppable?
Is Will Levis a Sneaky League Winner?
Will Levis finished week twelve with more fantasy points than his opponent in this game, C.J. Stroud, and finished the morning games as a top-twelve quarterback. He was sacked an unconscionable 8 times but finished with a 67% completion percentage and 11.6 yards per pass attempt. He also had two (long) touchdowns and a pick in this game, but he was fully unleashed in this one. He finished with his second-straight game with 275+ passing yards and his second game in three weeks that has seen Levis finish with multiple passing touchdowns, as well. Since his return to the lineup, he’s averaging a respectable 17 fantasy points per game.
He’s not great, but he does throw the ball deep and does it a ton. There are 36 quarterbacks to throw the ball at least 150 times this season, and Will Levis ranks eighth in deep ball throw rate (13.4%). He also ranks first in turnover-worthy throw rate (per FantasyPoints’ Data Suite)… but he also ranks seventh in percentage of deep passes that turn into touchdowns, and picked up a couple more deep touchdowns on the week.
So, he is going to be high-variance, and that’s something we are going to have to wrestle with as we consider Will Levis as a league winner. But, he has some incredible matchups going forward, and there’s a precedence for this type of player finding success in the NFL.
Levis took on the Houston Texans this week, who rank sixteenth in fantasy points allowed to opposing quarterbacks, and he finished with his second-best score of the week. That sixteenth rank also represents the lowest-ranked matchup that Levis faces for the rest of the season. He gets the #15 Commanders next week (who just allowed 17.98 fantasy points to Cooper Rush), before starting such a sweetheart run of games: in the last four weeks of the season, he plays the Jaguars, Bengals, Colts, and the Jaguars again. Those four matchups mark four top-ten matchups for quarterbacks.
Levis is going to have a chance to sling the ball all over the place, and even if he isn’t good on a down-to-down basis, we’ve already seen this in the AFC South with former Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles. Bortles finished his 2015 campaign with a similar stretch of matchups, taking on the Titans (4th in fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks), Colts (8th), Falcons (25th—and he stumbled in that matchup), and the Saints (1st in fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks). All told he faced four straight incredible matchups to end his season, and he finished with 310 yards and 3.3 touchdowns per game. Before those matchups, he sat at 268 yards and two scores per game.
While I doubt that Levis reaches the same levels that Bortles reached, he has some primo matchups, and if you are in a 2QB league or a deeper 1QB league, Will Levis could just make the season a success for you.
Are the Giants’ Options Really in That Much Trouble?
Yes. Well, that’s the short answer. Here’s the long answer: the Giants are starting Tommy DeVito because they don’t need or want the offense to succeed. They went to him over Drew Lock so that he could be the tank commander for the G Men. It was a disastrous day for the Giants’ weapons, as volume turned Malik Nabers into New Jersey Jakobi Meyers, but destroyed the day for everyone else, more or less. The Giants finished Tampa Bay with just seven points (a garbage-time plunge by Devin Singletary) while DeVito threw for 189 passing yards (on 31 attempts) and Singletary & Tyrone Tracy combined for only 11 carries (for 45 yards).
The offense never kicked into gear, and the whole team looked a complete mess the entire time. The worst part? The Buccaneers have been one of the most exploitable matchups both in the air and on the ground, especially in the last five weeks. In the last five weeks, the Buccaneers’ defense ranked first in fantasy points allowed to opposing quarterbacks, first in fantasy points to opposing receivers, and third in fantasy points allowed to opposing running backs. That all is to say: it was a very beatable matchup.
We only have two guys to worry about, here: Tyrone Tracy and Malik Nabers. Nabers finished the game with plenty of volume, finishing with 29% of DeVito’s targets. That’s likely to be sustained, as he had 3 more targets than Theo Johnson, the #2 target in this passing game. You have to scale down your expectations for Malik Nabers, but there’s no way that you can get away from that target share in 3WR leagues.
As for Tracy, his ceiling is also low, but his floor is very high. He had four targets (four catches, and 28 yards) in this one. That, combined with his efficient running, makes him a still useful part of your roster. It would be smart to downshift your expectations for the Giants’ offensive options, but you can skip calling out the sky for falling.
