Fantasy football fun facts: Najee Harris and Darrell Henderson are RB snap kings, David Montgomery a

Each week we need to look back to look forward. But in Week 1, we freak out!!! You laugh, but people are freaking out. I see it on Twitter, in my messages, on the street (literally was stopped mid-day in Brooklyn by someone asking about the best way to analyze usage, which is sort of what this article is all about). Fantasy managers love to overreact to Week 1, but there are things we need to talk about. Let’s just talk facts and take the emotion out of it.

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Just look at the usage, the real numbers, and then go for your guys (or stay put). But what people forget to do is look after waivers to pick up the players who should have never been dropped. This hot tip can give you the leg up you need to have an amazing season.

Quarterbacks

Tom Brady led Week 1 with seven pass completions inside the 20-yard line. Three QBs had six completions in the red zone: Dak Prescott, Jameis Winston, and Teddy Bridgewater.

Lamar Jackson’s 86 rushing yards in Week 1 was ninth among running backs, right after Antonio Gibson.

According to Pro Football Focus, Justin Fields got the football out of his hands the quickest in Week 1 with 1.75 average seconds to throw. While Jameis Winston held the ball the longest, at an average 3.13 seconds.

Jameis Winston’s 148 yards is the lowest yardage total for a five-touchdown game since the AFL/NFL merger.

Ryan Tannehill was sacked six times, and Arizona Cardinals linebacker Chandler Jones was responsible for five of those sacks. However, Zach Wilson was also sacked six times and he lost his left tackle during the game.

Dak Prescott is officially back. He threw for over 400 yards in the opener. That’s all we needed to see.

Running Backs

Only one running back played in 100% of his team’s snaps. That was Najee Harris. Only one other played in more than 90% of his team’s snaps. That was Darrell Henderson.

The back with the highest points per snap in PPR formats in Week 1 was Jamaal Williams (0.78 points per snap). Second was Nick Chubb at 0.71 points per snap. And yes, I said PPR.

If you watched Sunday Night Football, you would be zero percent surprised that David Montgomery led the league with 82 yards after contact in Week 1, according to Pro Football Focus. However, six other running backs put up 60+ yards after contact: Joe Mixon, Elijah Mitchell, Chris Carson, Antonio Gibson, Mark Ingram, Damien Harris.

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You could throw a stone and hit an article about the disaster of Trey Sermon being a healthy scratch rather than a must-have bench stash. How did no one know?!?! I’ll try to get over it, and I blame Kyle Shanahan. With that said, Raheem Mostert is confirmed as getting end of season surgery that’s required to mend his knee, so Sermon will have a chance to climb back up the depth chart, while Elijah Mitchell is the big waiver wire pickup of the week and JaMycal Hasty is the current No. 2. Frankly, I’m not convinced that Shanahan is going to commit to anyone in a way that will be comfortable for a fantasy roster. You may need to grab him (especially my Zero RB friends) but you won’t be surprised if it’s Hasty, or Sermon, and although not confirmed, it looks like they’ll bring in another back to muddy the waters.

Zack Moss was also a healthy scratch. We saw in the preseason that Devin Singletary won the job, but Matt Breida being your only other running back to touch the ball all game… hard to see this as a good position for Moss to get back to fantasy relevance.

However, both Moss and Sermon scored more fantasy points than Ronald Jones.

Three running backs for Houston scored a touchdown in Week 1: Mark Ingram, David Johnson, and Phillip Lindsay. Just like we all knew they would… However, Ingram carried the ball 26 times. Only Joe Mixon had more carries in Week 1. Lindsay had 8 total touches and Johnson had six. Ingram also played in 46% of the snaps, while Johnson played in 28% and Lindsay in 26%.

Austin Ekeler had the most rush attempts in the red zone (7) in Week 1. Two players had six carries within the 20: Nick Chubb and Mark Ingram.

Wide Receivers

Four receivers had three or more targets in the red zone: Keenan Allen, Chris Godwin, Amari Cooper, and Marvin Jones.

Arizona’s wide receivers breakdown like this in Week 1:

• DeAndre Hopkins — played in 88% of snaps — caught 6 of 8 targets for 83 yards and two touchdowns
• A.J. Green — played 80% of snaps — caught two of six targets for 25 yards
• Christian Kirk — played 57% of snaps — caught all five of his targets for 70 yards and two touchdowns
• Rondale Moore — played 29% of snaps — caught four of five targets for 68 yards

Robby Anderson and D.J. Moore were both on the field for 52 of Carolina’s 64 offensive snaps. Terrace Marshall was on the field for 34 snaps.

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Jerry Jeudy is expected to miss 4-6 weeks with a high ankle sprain. While in the game, he dominated by catching six of his seven targets for 72 yards. Here is how the workload was divided among the rest of the team (please note that Jeudy’s injury was with eight minutes remaining in the third quarter):

• Courtland Sutton —80% of snaps — caught one of three targets for 14 yards
• Tim Patrick — 70% of snaps — caught all four of his targets for 39 yards and a touchdown
• KJ Hamler — 36% of snaps — caught three of his four targets for 41 yards

Only two wide receivers played in 100% of their team’s snaps: Terry McLaurin and Darnell Mooney. Only four additional players were on the field for 95% of their team snaps or more: Jakobi Meyers, Chris Godwin, Michael Pittman Jr., and Sterling Shepard. I mentioned these names since I’m getting a lot of questions about what to do with some of these players.

According to Pro Football Focus, 109 of Deebo Samuel’s 189 yards were after contact.

Tight Ends

Darren Waller saw 19 targets on Monday Night Football. Last year only two players saw more targets than that in a game: Tyler Lockett in Week 7 and Cooper Kupp in Week 8. And only once in 2019 did a player get 20 targets, and that was Julio Jones in Week 15.

Adam Trautman played in 82% of the Saints’ offensive snaps and caught three of his six targets for 18 yards. Juwan Johnson only played in 19% of the team’s snaps, but caught all three of his targets for 21 yards… and two touchdowns. There is a big difference in terms of playing time and fantasy points.

However, the Browns were a lot more even with their tight ends when it comes to playing time, with Austin Hooper playing in 64% of the offense’s snaps, and David Njoku playing in 59%. But Njoku caught three of his five targets for 76 yards and Hooper caught all three of his targets for 27 yards.

Cole Kmet played 51 snaps to Jimmy Graham’s 14 snaps while also seeing seven targets to Graham’s two.

Only 16 tight ends scored 10 or more fantasy points in full PPR formats. Of those 16, five are on a roster in 11% or fewer Yahoo leagues.

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Gerald Everett (72% of snaps) and Will Dissly (70% of snaps) were on the field almost the exact same amount of time. Everett caught both of his targets for 20 yards and one touchdown. Dissly caught all three of his targets for 37 yards, but no touchdown.

(Top photo: Bryan M. Bennett/Getty Images)

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