Fantasy Football Roundtable. Week 3 Expert Rankings vs. Consensus.
It’s Week 3, and it feels like we’ve all been checked by reality. We’ve got multiple early-round draft picks on 0-2 real-life teams who have probably put fantasy managers in a similar spot. And injuries have caused tectonic shifts throughout the league.
But you, a scholar, knew who to target on waivers. And now, it just comes down to who we should prioritize for our starting roster spots.
As we head into another slate of games, our rankings squad got together again to find a few players they’re higher or lower on relative to consensus.
So if you’re having questions about setting your lineup for Week 3, check out their notes before kickoff.
RB - Rhamondre Stevenson (Patriots) at Jets
Will you just look at this man’s utilization.
Stevenson has handed roughly a third of the RB snaps to former Cowboys back Ezekiel Elliott, but make no mistake about it: This backfield still firmly belongs to No. 38.
The receiving upside here in particular is simply impossible to ignore in full-PPR formats. The position’s current leaders in PPR fantasy points from purely receiving production are as follows:
- Bijan Robinson (23.5)
- Saquon Barkley (19.1)
- Kyren Williams (17)
- Jaylen Warren (16.8)
- Aaron Jones (16.6 - in one game)
- Stevenson (16.4)
Stevenson posted 7-72-0 and 6-56-0 receiving lines against this Sauce Gardner-led secondary last season—don’t be surprised if the Patriots again look to attack the underneath areas of the field in a major way this Sunday.
- Ian Hartitz
RB - Joshua Kelley (Chargers) at Vikings
Kelley delivered an RB12 finish in Week 1, sharing time with Austin Ekeler. In Week 2, that made fantasy managers eager to get him into their lineups with Ekeler out. Unfortunately, Kelley ran into one of the outlier quality run defenses in the Titans and finished as the RB44.
Sep 17, 2023; Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert (10) hands the ball off to running back Joshua Kelley (25) during the first half against the Tennessee Titans at Nissan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
Tennessee ranked No. 1 in rushing yards allowed per game last year (76) and has started hot in 2023, ranking 4th (65). That won’t be the case this weekend against the Vikings, who have allowed 166 yards per contest this year (29th) and allowed 124 (21st) in 2022.
No other game has a higher total than this matchup at 54 points, and the Chargers offer a top-five team total. We want plenty of exposure to this game, and while Kelley bombed in the box score last weekend, his underlying utilization was pristine.
We get the perfect scenario with Kelley in Week 3: That is a high-end RB1 utilization profile in a great game environment. The Chargers’ RB offers 100-yard and multiple-TD upside.
The one huge caveat here is the status of Austin Ekeler. He didn’t participate in practice and is probably a week away from returning. Thankfully, the game is in Minnesota, so it’s an early kickoff.
Kelley is a SMASH play, and I am currently 15 spots ahead of consensus in the Fantasy Life Rankings at No. 23 overall.
RB - Miles Sanders (Panthers) at Seahawks
- Panthers: +5.5
- O/U: 42
- TT: 18.25
Sanders has been pedestrian to start the season (145 scoreless yards), but it’s hard to be picky when a back has 32 carries and 11 targets in two games.
Before joining the Panthers this offseason, Sanders racked up 4,650 yards in four years with the Eagles: He can produce.
The Seahawks last year were No. 4 in most fantasy points allowed to RBs (20.3 FPPG), and this offseason, they lost almost the entirety of their interior defensive line with the departures of DTs Poona Ford, Quinton Jefferson, Shelby Harris, and Al Woods.
RB Alexander Mattison (Vikings) vs. Chargers
- Vikings: Pick’Em
- O/U: 54
- TT: 27
I wish I were joking. Mattison has underwhelmed this season (83 yards, one TD). But he has 29 of the team’s 36 backfield opportunities (19 carries, 10 targets), and he leads the Vikings with four opportunities (two carries, two targets) inside the 10-yard line. For better or worse—probably worse—he looks like the guy.
LT Christian Darrisaw (ankle) seems likely to return to action given that he was active in Week 2 (albeit as a reserve), and the Vikings have a three-day rest advantage coming off Thursday Night Football.
Last year, the Chargers were No. 30 in defensive rush DVOA (8.6%) and are playing their second game in a row on the road.
WR - Jordan Addison (Vikings) vs. Chargers
The Vikings have hilariously only used three WRs to run routes all season, and Addison’s 78% route rate in Week 2 was exactly the sort of bump fantasy managers needed to see before truly trusting the rookie as a legit recommended start.
Yes, Addison has only seen 11 targets this season.
Also yes, he’s made the absolute most out of them, averaging a fanatic 1.99 yards per route run and absurd 19 yards per reception. Overall, Addison’s 145.1 passer rating when targeted is the fifth-highest mark among 80 players with at least 10 targets this season.
Sep 10, 2023; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Jordan Addison (3) reacts with wide receiver Justin Jefferson (18) after scoring his first career touchdown pass from quarterback Kirk Cousins (not pictured) against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during the second quarter at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports
This Chargers secondary was absolutely hoodwinked and bamboozled by the Dolphins in Week 1 before letting Ryan Tannehill and company largely do whatever they wanted in Week 2. The Vikings-Chargers 54.5 game total is a full 6.5 points higher than any other Week 2 matchup—close start/sit decisions regarding anyone in this matchup should probably go to whoever has a horn or lightning bolt on their helmet.
WR - Garrett Wilson (Jets) vs. Patriots
Ughhhhhhh. Ranking a young, talented player like Wilson below consensus is pure torture.
His 30% target share is amazing for a Year 2 player, and he has the big-play ability to unlock eruption games. However, finding a worse situation for a WR is hard.
- Zach Wilson has the lowest completion rate in the NFL at 54%
- The Jets’ 29.5 dropbacks per game is third-worst in the league
Even with the trailing game scripts the Jets have faced, they still qualify as a run-heavy team in dropback rate over expectation (DBOE), which accounts for the game score at the play level.
With a solid RB room and a quality defense, the best path for the Jets in 2023 is to win close games, and that becomes more difficult the more you allow Wilson to drop back to pass. His turnover-worth-play rate of 6.7% is the second-highest in the NFL per PFF.
All of this adds up to a grim outlook for Garrett Wilson. Assuming he continues to be on the field 98% of pass plays and applying targets per route run (20% currently) and dropbacks per game, we can create some basic target projections for a 17-game season:
- Current: 20% targets per route run with 29.5 dropbacks per game = ~100 targets
- Optimistic: 22% targets per route run with 32.0 dropbacks per game = ~120 targets
The catch rate for Wilson on passes from the inaccurate QB is 59% over two seasons, which brings us to a reception range of 60 to 70 on the year or 3.5 to 4.1 per game. Yikes.
We will still get some boom games from Garrett Wilson, but the industry hasn’t yet adjusted to the new reality.
Wilson is a boom-bust WR3 option this week and the rest of the way, which is why I am seven spots behind the Fantasy Life consensus and 10 places behind the industry.
