NFL

Fantasy Football: 3 Things We Learned in Week 15

Perhaps more than anything, fantasy football is a game of adjustments. Season-long fantasy doesn't end at the draft, and smart managers learn to take the trends and data that each week of games offers and apply it to their roster decisions moving forward.

This weekly piece will look at trends from the previous slate of games and determine which trends in snaps, usage, and matchups are actionable moving forward.

The Falcons Have a Julio Jones Problem

Assuming he plays in one of the Atlanta Falcons' last two games -- something Julio Jones has stated he wants to do -- the 31-year old wide receiver will have played in just 10 games this season and will likely fall well below 1,000 receiving yards and under five touchdowns. It's a far cry from the 1,564 receiving yards and six touchdowns he averaged over the last six Hall of Fame-caliber seasons.

The problem for the Falcons lies not necessarily with one injury-filled season for their star receiver, but the three-year contract extension Jones signed before this year that pays him $66 million from 2021 to 2023. After almost 140 career games, is Jones beginning to break down? Do we expect the production we saw in 2014 to 2019 to continue in Jones' age 32 to 34 seasons?

Compounding the problem is the fact that the best possible way out of the Jones contract is after the 2022 season, when the Falcons would face only a $7.7 million dead cap hit. Otherwise, Atlanta risks a $38.5 million dead cap hit if Jones is released before 2021 and a $15.5 million hit if released before 2022. These dates also introduce Part 2 of the Jones conundrum -- Calvin Ridley will enter free agency after the 2021 campaign.

Ridley will surely be looking for a $20 million per year contract of his own at that time, and that will force the Falcons between a rock and a hard place. His production with Jones off the field dictates Ridley should get his once it's time.


But the Falcons as a team are more productive when both Jones and Ridley play together -- we don't need football Ph.D.'s to understand two alpha receivers are better than one. The Falcons are just 1-4 this year in those five games they have not had Jones available.

According to Alex Lord, Matt Ryan averages 250 passing yards and a 0.5 touchdown-to-interception ratio in the games Jones has not played the last two years. He averages almost 280 yards per game and a 1.76 touchdown-to-interception ratio when both stud receivers play.

Keeper league and dynasty players should be watching this situation closely, especially any offseason news that Jones might take play a smaller role in the offense while the Falcons look to feature Ridley.

The Steelers Have One Reliable Fantasy Option

There was once a time during the 2020 season when Ben Roethlisberger had the sixth-best MVP odds in the league at +2500. After falling all the way to +15000 in some books after Week 14, he is now off the board in most locations as the Pittsburgh Steelers have gone into a freefall the last three games, eliminating any MVP talk as well as any hope of home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

Roethlisberger is not the only Steelers player to show flashes of greatness at times this season. All of James Conner, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Chase Claypool, Eric Ebron, and even James Washington have had their moments in 2020. But Diontae Johnson -- despite a recent case of the drops -- remains the one fantasy stalwart who should be in weekly lineups for fantasy championships.

Johnson and backup running back Benny Snell Jr. -- who started in place of Conner -- were the only Steelers to score more than seven points in half-PPR scoring in Monday night's embarrassing loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. Hopeflly you weren't looking for big games from Roethlisberger (seven points), Claypool (six points), Smith-Schuster (one point), or Ebron (zero points, injured) as all severely underperformed expectations.

It all comes down to Roethlisberger's decline in performance over the last eight weeks. As Big Ben goes, so goes the rest of the offense.

Except Johnson.

After tying Ridley for the wide receiver lead in targets in Week 15 (with 14), Johnson now has more targets than any other wide receiver (86) over the last eight weeks. He has turned that opportunity into almost seven catches and 66 yards per week, providing fantasy managers with a floor of 10 points in half-PPR scoring over that span.

Johnson has 17 more targets than any other Steelers player in that time and should continue to be Roethlisberger's go-to playmaker as they jockey for playoff positioning these last two games. Start other flex-eligible Steelers at your own peril.

Tyler Lockett's Disappearing Act

Against the Arizona Cardinals in Week 7, Tyler Lockett exploded for 15 receptions, 200 receiving yards, and three touchdowns. Considering it was his second three-touchdown game of the season, it started some substantial debate about whether Lockett or D.K. Metcalf was the better fantasy asset to roster in 2020.

Since that time, Lockett has 378 receiving yards and one touchdown combined over his next eight games. What happened?

To start, the Seattle Seahawks are barely letting Russell Wilson microwave anymore, let alone cook. As the calendar turned to December, the Seahawks were top 10 in the NFL in pass rate (61.6%). Over their last three games, however, Seattle has dialed up a pass only 56% of the time (19th-highest rate), including only 51% against the Washington Football Team in a game where the Seahawks were desperate for points.

In addition, it has been Metcalf who has separated himself as the true alpha on the team. Over the past month, Metcalf has 35 targets to Lockett's 25 and has triple the number of air yards in that span (448 to 158). Lockett's average depth of target in the last four weeks is 3.5 yards fewer than Jacob Hollister's, for some context.

Low, short targets have become Lockett's game over the last month or so, leaving Metcalf to haul in all nearly of the high-value targets. Against the Los Angeles Rams' daunting defense in Week 16, it may finally be time for Lockett to find your bench.