Bruno Boys Fantasy Football

“Fasulo’s Forecaster” (the work of guest columnist,Josh Fasulo, the owner of Fantasy Sports Shack) evaluates how the week gone by can help project future fantasy production. The “Targets & Touches” portion of the article examines the trends behind the numbers, with an emphasis on two of the most telling stats no one talks about: Targets (how often a receiver is thrown to) and Touches (how many times a running back gets the ball – rushes and receptions).  In “Rookie on the Rise”, Josh will highlight one first-year-player who is stepping it up. Last but not least, the “Mr. Overlooked: Sleeper of the Week” section forecasts one potentially available player in your league who could help your team win in the coming week.

TARGETS & TOUCHES

Week 8 was a mild week for fantasy football receivers, as only three players broke the 100-yard plateau and scored over 15 fantasy points (in standard scoring leagues): Reggie Wayne, Roddy White and Vincent Jackson.  The same cannot be said for fantasy runners, as six backs scampered past the century mark, and 15 went for 15 or more fantasy football points.  In a game that featured the two worst pass defenses in football, it was the running backs who shined.  Chris Johnson led the Tennessee Titans’ to win number one with 24 carries, 228 yards and 2 TDs.  He finished the day with 26 total touches and 239 yards.  Time of possession was dominated by Tennessee (39:43 to 20:17), thus Jacksonville Jaguars running back Maurice Jones-Drew rarely saw the ball (9 touches), but when he did, he made it count, reeling off 8 rushes for 177 yards and 2 TDs.  Shockingly, no receivers were fantasy factors in this match-up.

Around the league, it was no surprise to see some of the game’s top backs doing their thing.  Matt Forte, Ray Rice and Thomas Jones all had 28 touches, and all had more than 100 total yards – though Jones, unlike the others, failed to score.  Adrian Peterson was up to his old tricks against the Green Bay Packers (26 touches, 141 yards, TD), and Steven Jackson finally hit paydirt, accumulating 166 total yards on 25 touches.  The story of Week 8, though, belongs to a man owned in less than 1 percent of fantasy football leagues before Sunday.

After Steve Slaton lost a fumble for the 438th time in ’09 – that was an exaggeration, if you didn’t realize – he was benched for former Philadelphia Eagle running back Ryan Moats.  The 26 year-old Moats went on to log 25 touches (23 rushes, 2 receptions) and run his way to 151 total yards and 3 TDs.  For fantasy owners who spent a top draft pick on Slaton, this spells bad news.  Despite the fumbles, Slaton had been putting up consistently solid fantasy numbers over the past several games, but now it’s likely he and Moats will have some type of RBBC in Week 9 against the Indianapolis Colts.

Speaking of the Colts, Peyton Manning slung the ball 48 times in leading Indianaplis to a 7-0 record, and of those 48, 19 went to Reggie Wayne.  Wayne’s 20 targets (one from Joseph Addai) were seven more than any other receiver in the league, and understandably, his 12 catches, 147 yards and a TD were best in the league, too.  It’s no surprise to see big production from Wayne (3rd in NFL in targets over the past three games, despite playing only two games), but 13 targets to Dustin Keller (8 catches, 76 yards, TD) and 10 to Tim Hightower (8 receptions, 57 yards, 16 total touches, 96 yards, TD) won’t happen every week. 

Quick hitters: It’s good to see Greg Jennings getting it going (12 targets, 8 receptions, 88 yards, TD).  He’s tied for 4th in the league in targets over the past three games with 28.  With Owen Daniels’ season ending injury, Kevin Walter’s value goes up.  Chris Cooley apparently isn’t done for the year, but for at least the next three weeks, don’t forget about the guy I mentioned last week: Fred Davis.  With the Arizona Cardinals falling behind early, it was back to business as usual, as Tim Hightower regained the touches he’d lost to Beanie Wells the week before.  And finally, though Mike Bell got more touches (17) than Pierre Thomas (16) on Monday Night, it’s readily apparent Thomas is the more talented of the two (100 yards, 2 TDs to Bell’s 49 yards, 0 TD), and he should see his touches go up a touch.

Here are the Week 8 Targets and Touches grids:  (*=2 games, **=1 game)

TARGETS REPORT

	Player	Wk 8 Targets	Wk 8 Recs	Wk 8 Yards	Wk 8 TD	3-Wk Targets	3-Wk Recs	3-Wk Yards	3-Wk TD
1	Reggie Wayne	20	12	147	1	*29	19	230	2
2	Dustin Keller	13	8	76	1	27	11	118	1
-	Roddy White	13	4	108	1	30	14	214	3
4	Nate Burleson	12	6	89	0	*17	8	129	0
-	Vincent Jackson	12	8	103	1	28	17	291	3
-	Greg Jennings	12	8	88	1	28	19	204	1
-	Steve Smith (NYG)	12	8	68	0	28	16	181	0
8	Dallas Clark	10	8	99	0	*15	11	143	1
-	Donald Driver	10	6	63	0	21	15	254	1
-	Larry Fitzgerald	10	6	66	0	38	25	249	1
-	Tim Hightower	10	8	57	0	19	14	94	0
-	Andre Johnson	10	6	63	0	28	16	260	0
13	Kevin Boss	9	3	70	1	15	7	123	1
-	Michael Crabtree	9	6	81	0	*15	11	137	0
-	Tony Gonzalez	9	6	89	0	25	14	178	1
-	Michael Jenkins	9	4	66	0	19	8	103	0
17	Steve Breaston	8	6	57	0	19	14	157	1
-	Isaac Bruce	8	4	51	0	*14	6	74	0
-	Austin Collie	8	6	66	0	*14	10	102	1
-	Jerricho Cotchery	8	3	70	0	**8	3	70	0
-	Braylon Edwards	8	4	74	1	19	8	128	1
-	Devin Hester	8	7	81	0	27	21	265	1
-	Bryant Johnson	8	2	43	0	*12	4	70	0
-	Brandon Marshall	8	4	24	0	*14	9	73	0
-	Terrell Owens	8	5	39	0	23	11	79	0
-	Eddie Royal	8	2	10	0	*12	2	10	0
-	Jason Witten	8	4	36	0	*15	9	89	0
28	Miles Austin	7	5	61	1	*15	11	232	3
-	John Carlson	7	3	36	0	*13	5	91	0
-	Pierre Garcon	7	4	53	0	*15	7	77	0
-	Percy Harvin	7	5	84	1	21	10	136	1
-	Zach Miller	7	5	52	0	21	13	206	1
-	Steve Smith (Car)	7	3	56	1	23	10	159	1
-	Roy Williams	7	2	19	1	*12	3	35	1
35	Donnie Avery	6	1	15	0	13	4	90	1
-	Bernard Berrian	6	3	47	1	14	8	83	2
-	Anquan Boldin	6	3	23	0	20	12	152	0
-	Correll Buckhalter	6	6	30	0	*10	10	59	0
-	Keenan Burton	6	5	54	0	17	13	119	0
-	Brent Celek	6	4	61	1	18	11	144	1
-	Marques Colston	6	6	85	1	26	19	323	3
-	Antonio Gates	6	3	49	0	21	13	174	0
-	Frank Gore	6	5	43	0	*9	7	58	0
-	Devery Henderson	6	4	46	0	15	9	123	0
-	Torry Holt	6	2	17	0	*14	7	118	0
-	TJ Houshmandzadeh	6	4	24	0	*14	8	58	0
-	Donald Lee	6	3	17	0	15	9	95	0
-	Mohamed Massaquoi	6	2	28	0	24	8	133	0
-	Randy McMichael	6	2	16	0	12	7	57	0
-	Jeremy Shockey	6	5	72	0	16	13	214	1
-	Mike Thomas	6	4	55	0	*15	11	107	0
-	Kevin Walter	6	4	29	0	13	10	87	0
-	Kelley Washington	6	4	58	0	*11	7	106	0

 

TOUCHES REPORT

	Player	Wk 8 Touches	Wk 8 Rush-Rec	Wk 8 Yards	Wk 8 TD	3-Wk Touches	3-Wk Rush-Rec	3-Wk Yards	3-Wk TD
1	Matt Forte	28	26-2	121	2	58	47-11	230	2
-	Thomas Jones	28	27-1	130	0	79	75-4	481	2
-	Ray Rice	28	23-5	108	1	*48	33-15	302	3
4	Adrian Peterson	26	25-1	141	1	74	65-9	436	2
-	Chris Johnson	26	24-2	239	2	*43	41-2	367	2
6	Steven Jackson	25	22-3	166	1	71	61-10	427	1
-	Ryan Moats	25	23-2	151	3	25	23-2	151	3
8	DeAngelo Williams	23	23-0	158	0	76	69-7	469	3
9	Joseph Addai	22	20-2	66	1 (pass)	*43	40-2	133	2
-	Brandon Jacobs	22	20-2	107	0	45	40-5	229	1
11	Justin Fargas	21	18-3	79	1	56	49-7	267	1
12	Michael Turner	20	20-0	151	1	53	51-2	247	3
-	Kevin Smith	20	16-4	94	0	*35	31-4	155	0
14	LaDainian Tomlinson	18	18-0	56	2	64	59-5	229	2
-	Frank Gore	18	13-5	134	1	*33	26-7	181	1
16	Mike Bell	17	17-0	49	0	44	44-0	163	1
-	Jonathan Stewart	17	17-0	87	2	45	41-5	242	3
-	Julius Jones	17	15-2	88	0	*22	20-2	93	0
19	Jamal Lewis	16	16-0	69	0	44	42-2	152	0
-	Tim Hightower	16	8-8	96	1	39	25-14	174	3
-	Pierre Thomas	16	14-2	100	2	40	37-3	216	2
22	Marion Barber	15	14-1	51	1	30	28-2	99	1
-	Maurice Morris	15	14-1	82	0	*15	14-1	82	0
24	Correll Buckhalter	14	8-6	46	0	*28	18-10	121	0
25	LeSean McCoy	13	11-2	92	1	37	30-7	172	1
-	Ryan Grant	13	10-3	51	0	68	61-7	309	1
-	LenDale White	13	13-0	47	0	19	19-0	62	0
28	Knowshon Moreno	12	10-2	35	1	*31	28-3	78	1
-	Ronnie Brown	12	11-1	29	0	*28	27-1	77	1
-	Marshawn Lynch	12	9-3	49	0	51	45-6	168	1
31	Ricky Williams	10	8-2	68	0	*21	17-4	160	3
32	Felix Jones	9	8-1	69	0	*19	16-3	112	0
-	Michael Bush	9	7-2	41	0	25	21-4	96	0
-	Ahmad Bradshaw	9	9-0	21	1	32	31-1	96	2
-	Chris Brown	9	7-2	29	0	23	20-3	92	0
-	Fred Jackson	9	9-0	28	0	29	29-0	82	0
-	Maurice Jones-Drew	9	8-1	173	2	*47	41-6	351	5
38	Leonard Weaver	8	8-0	75	1	12	9-3	80	1
-	Beanie Wells	8	8-0	47	0	38	34-4	160	1
-	Shonn Greene	8	8-0	18	0	28	28-0	162	2
41	Chester Taylor	7	5-2	27	0	19	16-3	70	0
-	Edgerrin James	7	6-1	23	0	10	9-1	26	0
43	Darren Sproles	6	5-1	46	0	16	11-5	149	2
44	Jerome Harrison	5	5-0	19	0	17	13-4	75	0
-	Garrett Wolfe	5	5-0	53	0	11	11-0	75	0
46	Aaron Brown	4	2-2	28	0	*6	4-2	41	0
-	Reggie Bush	4	2-2	14	1	17	11-6	64	3
-	Rashad Jennings	4	3-1	9	0	*6	4-2	8	0
-	John Kuhn	4	2-2	29	0	7	4-3	32	1
-	Tashard Choice	4	4-0	11	0	5	4-1	34	0

 

 
ROOKIE ON THE RISE

Michael Crabtree, WR, San Francisco 49ers

Crabtree is this year’s guy you’d most like to hate simply because of the ridiculous reason for his lengthy holdout.  However, now that he’s joined his team, the rookie out of Texas Tech isn’t making any waves, except on the football field where he’s already showing why he should have been the top receiver chosen in the NFL draft.  In his two games, Crabtree has been targeted 15 times, and has 11 receptions for 137 yards.  He runs great routes, has terrific hands and seems to already understand the 49ers’ playbook.  As he builds a rapport with Alex Smith, bigger and better things are sure to come.

Weak 9 Projection: 10 targets, 6 catches, 74 yards, 1 TD

Remainder of the Season Projection: 73 targets, 40 catches, 515 yards 4 TD

MR. OVERLOOKED: SLEEPER OF THE WEEK

Alex Smith, QB, San Francisco 49ers

It’s unlikely you’re scrambling to find a bye-week QB fill-in for Week 9, but if you are, seriously consider Smith.  Smith was universally un-owned only two weeks ago, but after a monstrous second half against the Houston Texans (where he connected with Vernon Davis on three scores) and a decent showing in Week 8 against the Indianapolis Colts’ 7th ranked pass defense (19-32, 198 yards, 1 TD, 1 Int), Smith is reestablishing his career in San Francisco.  With Frank Gore, Davis, the emerging Michael Crabtree, Isaac Bruce and Josh Morgan at his disposal, despite the loss of starting tackle Joe Staley, Smith could put up big numbers this week against a Tennessee Titans defense that, although they shut down the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 8, still ranks dead last in the league versus the pass.

Week 9 Projection: 22-34, 235 yards, 2 TD, 1 Int

Week 9 Rankings:  QB  |  RB  |  WR  |  TE  |  K  | DEF    (click to read)

Week 9 Start & Sit:  START ‘EM  | SIT ‘EM    (click to read)

Week 9 Waiver Wire Advice:  PICK THEM UP  |  CUT THEM LOOSE    (click to read)

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