Contenders and Pretenders in both NFL and Fantasy Football

by Peter Overzet

2 months ago

In today's Fantasy Life Newsletter, presented by Experian:

We’re now almost one-third of the way done with the 2024 NFL season and things are starting to heat up.

We’re finally realizing who are the contenders and who are the pretenders.

And more importantly, we have a good idea of where fantasy points will and won’t be coming from going forward.

Here are a few things we learned yesterday …

The Bucs are legit. Baker Mayfield is playing like a Top-5 QB in the league right now. More on their explosion vs. the Saints in my recap column below.

The Cowboys and Jaguars are too broken to provide any kind of week-to-week consistency for our fantasy teams. CeeDee Lamb deserves better.

There is no QB controversy in Pittsburgh, as the Steelers moved to 4-2 yesterday. Justin Fields isn’t setting the world on fire, but he isn’t making mistakes and he’s creating plays on the ground.

The second leg of the rookie movement is underway. Drake Maye, Bucky Irving, and Tyrone Tracy all made big splashes on Sunday. Even sleepers like Troy Franklin, Xavier Legette, and Kimani Vidal all found the end zone and could be difference makers down the stretch.

And tonight we’ll find out who is the best team in the AFC East and whether a coaching change can turn things around for the Jets …

What else is in today’s newsletter?

Pete puts a bow on Week 6’s main slate of games.
Watercooler: Injury updates

Week 6 Takeaways: TB Bucs & Young bucks

by Pete Overzet

It's time for my weekly recap column where I round up six things—the good, the bad, and the ugly—that caught my eye on the Sunday main slate.

Let's dig in …

🏴‍☠️ The Bucs go boom

There's something about the NFC South. There's no such thing as a "normal" game when this division meets up.

Yesterday, the Bucs opened their game vs. the Saints with a 17-0 run. Then the Saints went on a wild 27-7 run of their own to tighten up the score 27-24. But then the Bucs went on a 27-0 run to finish with 51 total points. Um, what?

As you might imagine, this resulted in plenty of fantasy goodness as Tampa Bay set a new franchise record with 594 net yards of offense.

Chris Godwin (11-125-2) broke the slate, Baker Mayfield (325 and 4 TDs) now leads the entire NFL in TDs (14), and Sean Tucker (14-136-1; 3-56-1) stole Bucky Irving's thunder with Rachaad White out.

To be fair to Bucky (14-81-1; 2-24) he had a very solid day, including this electric run. But no one expected him to get outproduced by Tucker. It's safe to speculate whether White could get Wally Pipped here.

Tampa Bay is on bye next week before returning in Week 8 for a MNF date with the Ravens.

🍼 A new crop of rookies make a splash

We got our first look at some intriguing rookies on Sunday and they did not disappoint:

Drake Maye: It started out a little bumpy, but the Patriots’ franchise QB quickly settled in and made all kinds of impressive plays on his way to 19.5 fantasy points vs. the Texans. Dwain has the full stat breakdown here. Everything we hoped for from Maye as a prospect—aggressiveness as a thrower and willingness to run—was on full display. The only shocker was how he was able to do this without watching Jacoby Brissett from the sidelines for 10 more weeks? A miracle, indeed.

Spencer Rattler: Rattler's debut wasn't as auspicious as Maye's, but he also lost one of his top weapons (Chris Olave) off the rip. Still, he didn't play scared and made some nice throws. whispers We don't have a QB controversy in New Orleans, yet, but we will in another couple weeks. Talk then.

Kimani Vidal. We mentioned stashing the Chargers’ rookie RB in Sunday's newsletter and he immediately made good on it by scoring a TD on his first NFL touch. This backfield still belongs to J.K. Dobbins (he had 25 carries vs. the Broncos), but don't sleep on Vidal. He's an obvious handcuff and could earn some standalone value as the season progresses.

4 more Week 6 takeaways

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