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NFL Week 6 Usage Trends: Fantasy Football Notes for All 32 Teams

By Ryan Kirksey
Tyreek Hill NFL Week 11 Risers and fallers

In fantasy football, usage and opportunity are king. Fantasy points can’t accrue on our teams unless our players accumulate the snaps, attempts, and targets that lead to yards and touchdowns.

This weekly piece will look at usage trends from each NFL team from a fantasy angle. We will look at who is gaining and who is losing opportunities in order to make better future roster decisions.

If you have interesting usage notes, feel free to reach out to me on X (@CableBoxScore) and let me know. Let’s dive into Week 6 usage!

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NFL Week 6 Usage Trends

ARIZONA CARDINALS

Backfield Mess

Hot waiver wire pickup saw 43% of the snaps on Sunday compared to Keontay Ingram’s 37% and Damien Williams’ 17%. But it was Ingram who got 50% of the rushing share and two of the four balls thrown to running backs.

ATLANTA FALCONS

Pitts and Smith Do Their Twins Impression

After it looked like Kyle Pitts had taken a leap over Jonnu Smith in Week 5, the two tight ends had almost identical production and usage on Sunday. Pitts played 55% of the snaps and had four catches for 43 yards and a score. Smith played on 54% of the snaps and had four catches for 36 yards and a touchdowns.

BALTIMORE RAVENS

Nevermore Throwing Deep

Baltimore has basically abandoned the long passing game from their offensive philosophy. Lamar Jackson’s air yards per completion this year is almost half a yard lower than any season in his career. Zay Flowers has still been able to find some success, but he couldn’t even crack 60 air yards on eight targets in Week 5.

BUFFALO BILLS

Cooking in London

After 16 targets on Sunday night, Stefon Diggs leads the league in target share (33.5%). Over the last three weeks, that number is higher at 37.8%.

CAROLINA PANTHERS

Thielen Keeps on Producing

Over the last three weeks, Adam Thielen has a 33.7% target share, which puts him third in the NFL behind only Ja’Marr Chase and Stefon Diggs. Thielen has seen at least 13 targets 10 times in his 10-year career, and three of them have come in the last four weeks.

CHICAGO BEARS

Another Injury Backfield Mess

With Khalil Herbert on IR, Darrynton Evans played a healthy 36% of the snaps on Sunday. D’Onta Foreman was supposed to get all the work, but Evans was uber-efficient. If Roschon Johnson will be out for another week, Evans is a name to grab off the waiver wire this week.

CINCINNATI BENGALS

Chasing History

Ja’Marr Chase has 32 targets over the last two weeks. Wide receivers have reached that number 63 times since the 2000 season began, But Chase’s 45.2 fantasy points over the two games is the 17th-best of that group.

CLEVELAND BROWNS

Hanging With Mr. Cooper

Cody Suek found perhaps the most interesting stat of the day about this fantastic sideline catch made by Amari Cooper against the 49ers.

DALLAS COWBOYS

Ferguson Cardio Night

Jake Ferguson certainly got his cardio in with a team-high 55 snaps and 32 routes run on Monday night. All of that led to just one target from Dak Prescott, which is a large drop from his previous four games.

DENVER BRONCOS

Backfield Mess Part III

With Javonte Williams still working his way back from injury last Thursday, three running backs saw between 23% and 40% of the snap share. Kansas City completely shut down Denver so none of the running backs ended up contributing anything meaningful to fantasy statistics.

DETROIT LIONS

Craig Reynolds Time

After David Montgomery went down with an injury, it was Craig Reynolds essentially 100% the rest of the game. That might mean a lot of work for Reynolds, but what it REALLY means is an even bigger share of the work for Amon-Ra St. Brown. He was second in the league this week with 15 targets.

GREEN BAY PACKERS

Green Bay Did Not Play in Week 5

HOUSTON TEXANS

Dalton Schultz: Red Zone Weapon

Only one tight end had two targets from inside the 10-yard line thr0ugh the Sunday Night Football game: Dalton Schultz. Schultz now has back-to-back games with at least seven targets and a touchdown in three straight.

INDIANAPOLIS COLTS

Minshew the Garbage Time Hero

The Colts trailed by multiple scores for much of this game, which led to some non-stop passing from Gardner Minshew in the second half. He tied for the lead with 10 pass attempts inside the Red Zone in Week 6. The Colts will not be very good this year, so hopefully there is more of that to come.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS

Strange Currencies

The three Jacksonville players who got an opportunity in the Red Zone on Sunday were Travis Etienne (4, no problems there), Christian Kirk (1, yeah that makes sense), and Brenton Strange (2, huh?). Evan Engram managers (with his seven total targets) are hating life right now.

KANSAS CITY CHIEFS

Wide Receiver Buffet

Five different wide receivers saw between 39% and 56% of the snaps last Thursday for Kansas City. All of them saw targets in the game. What’s the old saying? “If you’ve got five receivers, you actually have zero wide receivers.”

LAS VEGAS RAIDERS

Meyers Ascension

It’s not time to push the panic button on Davante Adams or anything, but Jakobi Meyers has 17 targets to Davante Adams’ nine over the last two games. Meyers also has four Red Zone targets to three for Adams. With Brian Hoyer likely taking over for a couple of games, we will have to see where his tendencies lie.

LOS ANGELES CHARGERS

Quentin Johnston Afterthought

Monday was not the night for the Quentin Johnson breakout game and now we have to wonder if it’s going to happen this season. He played less than half as many snaps as Keenan Allen and Joshua Palmer and saw just one target. After the top two wide receivers, Austin Ekeler and the tight ends, there just hasn’t been any volume for Johnston.

LOS ANGELES RAMS

Bellcow Kyren

Kyren Williams’ 7.9 yards per carry against the Cardinals was almost double his next-best output in a single game this season (4.1 yards). He was also able to gain over 150 yards and score a touchdown despite getting just three rush attempts and no targets in the Red Zone.

MIAMI DOLPHINS

Record Hill to Climb

Tyreek Hill (814 receiving yards) leads the league in yards and has 200 more than third-place Stefon Diggs. Those 200 yards are essentially the same between third-place Diggs and 14th-place CeeDee Lamb. If Hill doesn’t break the record in a healthy season, it’s an upset at this point.

MINNESOTA VIKINGS

Post-Jefferson Plays

With Justin Jefferson on the shelf, K.J. Osborn and Jordan Addison predictably stepped up to the first and second chair at wide receiver, each with more than 85% of snaps played. Brandon Powell took the WR3 spot with 60% of snaps. Addison and Powell each got one Red Zone target so not much data to parse there.

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS

Fantasy Wasteland

Besides Rhamondre Stevenson and Kendrick Bourne, there is no one on this team who should come anywhere near your fantasy lineups. And both of them are really just volume plays. In the game against the Raiders, Mac Jones threw 24 times to running backs and wide receivers. Stevenson and Bourne earned 17 of them.

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS

Shaheed Emergence

Speedster Rashid Shaheed finally got extremely involved in the Saints’ offense on Sunday, playing a season-high 76% of snaps and drawing six targets. He turned those (mostly deep) targets into 85 yards and a touchdown in his best game since Week 1.

NEW YORK GIANTS

Barkley Back (But Affordable!)

In his first game back from an ankle injury that sidelined him four games, Barkley was back to being a workhorse. He played 82% of the snaps, handled 84% of the running back carries, and touched the ball 28 times. He did not have a great game, so if there is someone selling low on this performance, scoop up all that usage.

NEW YORK JETS

Hall Unleashed

Breece Hall finally saw a massive workload and a large snap percentage on Sunday. He played on two-thirds of the snaps, touched the ball 17 times, and looked as explosive as ever. No other back saw more than 20% of snaps in the upset win. If the Jets transform into a defense-first, smash-mouth running team, they might still make the playoffs this year.

PHILADELPHIA EAGLES

Brown Getting Around

A.J. Brown has 564 receiving yards in his last four games. That has happened 43 times over a four-game stretch since the 2000 season, but Brown now joins Tyreek Hill and Justin Jefferson as the only players to do it since 2017.

PITTSBURGH STEELERS

Pittsburgh Did Not Play in Week 5

SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS

Mason Hammers His Opportunity

Elijah Mitchell may be the first thought on the waiver wire this week if Christian McCaffrey misses time, but Jordan Mason may be the player you want. He jumped in after the injury, played 24% of the snaps, and turned his five carries into 27 yards and a touchdown. Mitchell, on the other hand, had two carries for -3 yards.

SEATTLE SEAHAWKS

Lockett In Near the Goal Line

After two straight games where he did not see a Red Zone target, Tyler Lockett jumped right back in with two against Cincinnati. He is also surprisingly the team leader in targets through five games (two more than D.K. Metcalf).

TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS

Trey Palmer Air Yards

As the Buccaneers tried to play catchup with the Detroit Lions on Sunday afternoon, Baker Mayfield decided to key in on little-used wide receiver Trey Palmer. On seven targets, Palmer got 154 air yards, the fourth-most among all wide receivers this week. The problem was, that Baker just couldn’t connect with him, resulting in just two catches for 47 yards. If Palmer becomes a bigger part of the offense with that kind of aDOT, he is a speculative add.

TENNESSEE TITANS

You Try Tackling a Spear

Derrick Henry had a very good game on Sunday with more than 90 yards rushing and a touchdown, but it’s rookie Tyjae Spears who continues to make big plays week after week. According to FTNData, Spears leads all running backs with a 37% broken tackle rate through six weeks.

WASHINGTON COMMANDERS

Lost Dotson

For the third straight week, the targets went down for Jahan Dotson, and this time it sunk to the depths. He had just one ball thrown his way on Sunday and ended the day with no stats. That’s now five games with under 40 receiving yards for the former first-round pick.

Data Sources: Pro Football Focus, NFL Next Gen Stats, Football Guys Snap Summary, FTN Air Yards, Pro Football Reference, Team Rankings

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