10 Things You Need to Know About Week 7 for Fantasy Football

We’re effectively a third of the way through the season. And NFL teams are starting to find what is working for them on offense. Let’s see what some of those tactics are and how they might impact our fantasy squads moving forward.

Bears: Relying on No Huddle and Quick Game

The Bears have been finding success going no-huddle in recent weeks. Against the Jaguars, the Bears had the third-highest rate of no-huddle in neutral situations (the first three quarters when the game is within eight points). Caleb Williams clearly has felt more comfortable here, with narrowing the playbook in these situations as a possible explanation. In Week 6, Williams went 5/6 passing when the Bears went up-tempo, along with both a scramble and a designed run. The graph below shows team pace on the x-axis and no-huddle use on the y-axis. The Bears are one of the fastest teams in the league and use no-huddle at the second-highest rate behind only the Commanders, who, coincidentally, also have a rookie QB.

To go along with their use of no-huddle, the Bears have also increased their use of the quick passing attack. Against the Jaguars, Williams went 13/14 for 111 yards and three TDs on passes with a time to throw below 2.5 seconds, according to PFF. The problem that poses for Bears’ receivers is that his average target depth on those throws was only 5.1 yards. Rome Odunze is particularly hurt by the use of quick game, as his 15.2-yard aDoT this season is six yards higher than any other relevant Bears receiver.

But this is great news for the likes of Cole Kmet and D'Andre Swift. Caleb struggling on deep pass attempts is interesting because a large selling point for him as a prospect was his ability to extend the play and make an amazing throw down the field to bail out his offense. With that in mind, I’d imagine his deep passing improves as the season progresses. But it will unfortunately be difficult for Odunze to thrive in his current role in the short term.

Ravens: Play Action Puts Opposing Defenses in a Blender

Lamar Jackson went 12/12 for 239 yards when using play action in Week 6, according to SIS. As we looked at last week, defenses have responded to the threat of Derrick Henry in the backfield by loading up the box against run looks. Opposing defenses have opted to force Jackson to beat them through the air. And he’s obliged in recent weeks. One of the most promising outcomes from this play action use was Jackson’s target depth. His 146 air yards on his play-action throws in Week 6 were about half of his air yards from play-action for the season.

And while the air yards still weren’t necessarily there, one of the beneficiaries of Lamar passing the ball more was Zay Flowers. Five of Flowers’ nine targets came off of play action. The Ravens find themselves top-three in both passing and rushing EPA. The issue for Flowers moving forward is that the Ravens have shown that they want to run the ball. The graph below shows pass rate over expectation (PROE) on the x-axis and how much that fluctuates weekly on the y-axis.

The Ravens are in the top-left of the graph. They’ve yet to have a game this season with a positive PROE. And looking at their schedule, only four of their final 11 regular season games are likely to require them to keep pace with their opposing offense. Luckily, one of those games is in the fantasy championship when they play the Texans. But you’ll need to get there if you have Zay Flowers on your team and suffer through games against the Giants and Steelers in Weeks 15 and 16.

Giants: Run with Daniel Jones Until Nabers Returns

Speaking of the Giants, from Weeks 1 through 4, Daniel Jones averaged about six rushing attempts per game. The Giants then lost their undisputed best player and top receiving weapon in Malik Nabers to a concussion. In the following two weeks, Jones hit 11 rushing attempts in each game. With a lack of offensive weapons, the Giants clearly made Jones’ rushing ability a focus. Jones actually led the league in designed QB rushing attempts over the last two weeks with 18, according to SIS. And they’ve largely been successful, averaging 0.11 EPA/attempt. Combine this value with Burrow’s unexpected touchdown run, and the Week 6 Giants/Bengals game had the second-most EPA from QB rushing/scrambling of any game this season. “Hey look at us, who would’ve thought, not me!”

Luckily for Giants fans and fantasy players alike, Nabers is expected back in Week 7. And with that, I’d expect a return to the rushing volume we saw from Jones from Weeks 1 through 4. But the last two weeks were still promising. While he didn’t get there in Week 6, he had his best fantasy day of the season in Week 5 without Nabers. This use definitely raises his floor in 2QB/superflex leagues. And it should raise your confidence in Jones as at least a floor play if you need to rely on him even without Nabers.

Patriots: At Least It Will Be Fun

Even as the founder of the Jacoby Brissett fan club, I was excited to see Drake Maye finally start for the Patriots. I think Brissett would function much better in a Joe Flacco role, where he could step into an otherwise good offensive environment and operate successfully. But that simply isn’t what the Patriots have. What they need is a QB who is willing to take some risks and get away from a low-ceiling attack. We got that from Drake Maye in his first start.

The graph below shows the percentage of passes thrown into a tight window on the x-axis and the average number of air yards ahead or behind the first down marker on the y-axis. And I’ve included a circle that captures both Jacoby Brissett and Drake Maye. It’s not dramatic, at least on this small sample, but Maye was more willing to throw to receivers with less separation and was throwing the ball closer to the required distance for a first down. According to Next Gen Stats, Maye’s TD pass to Kayshon Boutte traveled 51.7 yards in the air, which was the longest completion for a Patriots QB in three years. Maye is exactly who this Patriots team that is lacking offensive weapons needs.

Jets: This is Rodgers’ Team

We got Breece Hall’s first great fantasy game in three weeks against the Bills on Monday night. Nate Tice of Yahoo Sports recently made an interesting point about Hall’s use. He mentioned that Aaron Rodgers’ need to control everything at the line of scrimmage limits the run menu for the Jets. Essentially, they mostly run with zone-blocking concepts because those runs are easy to get into from any formation. Where that’s unfortunate for Hall is that he’s historically been much better in man/gap or duo run-blocking schemes. As an example, Hall averaged 3.5 yards per carry with a zone-blocking scheme in 2023. But he averaged 6.7 yards per carry with any other blocking scheme.

The graph below shows the percentage of team RB carries using a zone blocking scheme on the x-axis and the EPA per attempt of those attempts on the y-axis. The Jets are in the bottom-right of the graph. They’re using zone runs at the fifth-highest rate in the league but with the least amount of success of those five teams. This data from SIS is only updated through Week 5, but from my untrained eye, Hall’s big runs on Monday night were not zone-rushing attempts. His biggest run of the night looked like a power run with Alijah Vera-Tucker pulling and creating a huge lane for him. Troy Aikman on the broadcast said during that run that “we haven’t seen much of that this year”. Here’s hoping we see more of it in the weeks ahead.

One quick semi-related point on the Jets because they traded for Davante Adams while I’m writing this article. I’m going to be very interested to see what WRs are on the field in 2-WR sets. Anyone with eyes knows that it should be Davante Adams and Garrett Wilson. But would it really surprise you if it’s Davante Adams and Allen Lazard?

Commanders Versus Browns on Latedowns: Two Ships Passing in the Night

NFL teams have averaged a first down on 40% of third and fourth down attempts this season. One possible area of regression for the Commanders is their league-leading 53% conversion rate. That includes a 100% first-down rate on 4th down attempts. It’s hard to find a stat that doesn’t love this Commanders' offense, though. With that in mind, you could do worse than Noah Brown on your bench. After missing Week 5, Brown returned to his role as the number two WR on the offense. He had his best game of the season, earning 8 targets, leading the team in air yards, and hitting the third-highest route rate on the team. This is largely a recommendation for deeper leagues, but Brown represents a cheap way to gain access to this Commanders offense.

On the other side of late-down success are the Browns. They’ve moved the chains on only 26% of third or fourth down attempts this season. Deshaun Watson has been sacked on 21% of his dropbacks on late downs, which is the highest rate of any QB in the league. Only Watson and Will Levis have a rate above 17%. There is no hope for this offense until their ownership reads a Wikipedia article on sunk cost and puts Jameis Winston in the game. And now they traded Amari Cooper to the Bills. The second big WR trade as I write this article. What a week!

Calvin Ridley: It’s Past Time

Speaking of no hope, Calvin Ridley. It’s past time to drop him from your fantasy team. If it didn’t happen last week, then it’s probably not going to happen. I held out hope that his air yards would turn into actual yards last week. The Colts’ defense has been susceptible to outside WRs in prior weeks. And yet, Ridley turns eight targets into zero receptions. Womp womp.

To his credit, only three of those targets came in the first three and a half quarters. And of those eight targets, only two were charted as catchable by Fantasy Points. So, only 28 of his 118 air yards in Week 6 were possible for him to grab. According to JJ Zachariason, this was only the third time since 2011 that a WR had 8+ targets and zero receptions. Ridley is now WR49 in my expected points model and he’s actually been underperforming that low rank by almost two fantasy points per game. It’s past time to move on.

TE Trash Heap

Adding insult to injury, Panthers TE Tommy Tremble was fined for a hit that also gave him a concussion in Week 5 and left him out in Week 6. Ja'Tavion Sanders quietly had a nice game in his place. He finished as the second-leading receiver for the Panthers after Diontae Johnson. He turned his seven targets into five receptions for 49 yards. Depending on your roster, he either hilariously or unfortunately has the same number of expected fantasy points per game as Sam LaPorta. He also has the same expectation as Greg Dulcich.

Speaking of Dulcich, he’s been a healthy scratch in consecutive weeks for the Broncos. In his place was someone named Lucas Krull who had a 73% route participation rate. That easily led the team and more than doubled his previous season high, according to JJ Zachariason. I’m wishing the best for your fantasy team, dear reader, and so I’m optimistic that you don’t need any of these players. But if you’re in a deep league that starts multiple TEs and you’re looking for some potential upside, Sanders is out there. It’s hard to find a TE that can earn seven targets in a game. And Krull is allegedly a human who plays TE.

Trey Benson: Questionable Handcuff

Ray Davis paid off nicely in Week 6 if you had him stashed as a handcuff. My general strategy for handcuffing RBs is to avoid handcuffing an RB on my own team. I prefer to go with the higher-ceiling, lower-floor approach of rostering my opponents’ RB handcuffs. In addition, I like to be confident that the RB I’m rostering will get the majority of high-value touches if the starter goes down.

And that’s where I have concerns about Trey Benson on the Cardinals. Benson is among the bottom-10 RBs in rushing yards over expected (RYOE) per attempt and fourth-worst in success rate. So, on a small sample, it hasn’t been great for Benson in 2024. Moreover, with the game out of hand, Emari Demarcado actually led the Cardinals in snap share in Week 6. I would go an alternate route for RB upside stemming from injury.

Week 7 Passing and Rushing Matchups

Below are two graphs. They show an offense’s efficiency via EPA on the x-axis and their opponent’s defensive efficiency on the y-axis. And I've split it into two graphs: one for the pass game and one for the run game. You’ll see the Commanders in the top-right of both graphs. It’s a great spot for their receivers though it could be tough in a potential blowout to see the volume we’d like. The Commanders are currently 7.5-point favorites, the second-highest spread of the week.

Like seemingly every week, the Ravens are in the top-right of the rushing matchup graph. The Rams against the Cardinals are more interesting, though. In a close projected matchup, I’d imagine we see a hefty dose of Kyren Williams in this one. And we never root for injuries, but continuing my point from the Trey Benson section above, I would make sure Blake Corum is rostered in your league. My confidence that he is actually the number two RB in Los Angeles has increased in recent weeks. He could crush if anything were to happen to Williams.