Week-6 Fantasy Debrief with Chace Daskalos

0:11 What's going on everyone? Welcome into the show. I am your host Chase Daskalos and every single Monday we're going through the numbers of what happened in the fantasy football world. Player performance, opportunity, usage, team trends, league trends, you name it. I got the numbers on it featuring NextGenStats and NFL Pro.

0:29 We're going to go through my biggest takeaways from most of the games in week six. Normally we start with a Thursday night game. We will get there in a minute. But first, I wanted to add some pretty crazy context into what is shaping up to be a really low scoring fantasy week. So if you looked at your team's score and thought, what in the world just happened? What am I looking at? Here you go. Entering Monday night, not a single player in week six has scored 30 or more fantasy points. The last week where there wasn't a single player to hit that 30 point mark was week 13, 2009. So nearly 20 seasons ago. There's obviously opportunity for a 49er or commander to accomplish that on Monday Night Football. But as things stand, this week is

1:14 on pace by about 200 points to be the overall lowest scoring week of the season so far. It's a little bit of an ugly week. Hopefully your opponent also struggled and you were able to survive. But I think it's fitting that the ugliness of week six started on Thursday night and that's where we will dive into things with the Broncos handing the defending Super Bowl champion Seahawks their third loss of the season just six weeks in.

1:38 As you can imagine, there aren't a ton of good fantasy takeaways from this mess of a game outside of Jackson Smith and Jigba. We'll talk about him in a minute. But there has been a ton of discussion on Bo Nix. So I wanted to start there with what I'm seeing It is obvious just by watching him play, but Bo Nix currently ranks dead last in the NFL in yards per attempt, dead last in air yards per attempt, dead last in success rate, all while being pressured at the fifth lowest rate in the NFL. He sits at 5.8 air yards per attempt to be exact, dead last in the league. He's also not running at all. He has a career low 2.5% scramble run rate. That's the 10th lowest in the league. It's right in line with guys

2:18 like Jared Goff, Michael Penix, Jacoby Brissett, all guys who are notoriously pocket passers. For your fantasy team, Bo Nix needs to run, but he's not doing it. I have questions and kind of wonder how healthy his ankle is or at least how comfortable he feels on it. Reminder, he fractured his ankle in the playoffs last season and missed the AFC Championship game. He doesn't look right to me.

2:41 Another issue that I found and something that I will tie into why Jalen Waddell has been a massive fantasy disappointment so far this season is along with not pushing the ball downfield at all, Bo Nix will not throw the ball over the middle of the field. He won't do it. He has a 19% middle-of-the-field target rate this season.

2:58 It's the third lowest in the NFL. It's the lowest mark in his career. He also has the third fewest yards per attempt in the league when doing so. So even when he does, it has practically been ineffective. So 81% of his pass attempts are going somewhere other than the middle of the field. You know who has thrived in the middle of the field in his career and is not an outside-the-numbers guy? That would be Jalen Waddell. Actually, a cool stat from when Jalen Waddell entered the NFL in 2021 to 2025, there are just four wide receivers with over 2,000 yards on middle of the field receptions.

3:31 It's Amon Ross St. Brown, Justin Jefferson, Tyreek Hill, and Jalen Waddell. But Bo is not throwing it there. He's also ranked bottom 10 in middle of the field target rate in every single one of the seasons. So I honestly fear there's like Just a tendency mismatch here between Bo Nix and Jalen Waddell. Bo is a drop in single quarterback leagues and in 2QB or super flex. He just has to be on your bench. With Waddell too, I think he needs to be on your bench until something turns around. He will not produce for you as long as Bo refuses to throw it over the middle of the field. I could keep piling on Bo Nix too, but that's not fair because Sam Darnold has been almost as equally bad in terms of EPA per drop back.

4:11 Bo has been the 9th worst quarterback in the NFL. And Darnold actually ranks eighth worst. He looks like he has no zip on his passes. He's just throwing meatball subs, as Tom Brody would say. He has seven interceptions since week three. It's the most in the NFL, and pretty shocking that since the start of last season, Super Bowl champion Sam Darnold has thrown 21 interceptions, tied for the most in the league with Justin Herbert. Fantasy-wise, Seattle is a disaster. JSN is really the only startable piece right now.

4:40 I think Zach Charbonnet has a decent chance of playing in week seven. It is against the Chiefs, though. That is a situation where if you do have Charbonnet, I'd rather have him on my bench until we see exactly what the Seahawks' backfield split looks like with him in the rotation. Jacksonville beat the Eagles in London last week.

4:57 They stayed across the pond. Houston comes to town, and the Texans come up with a massive divisional win, 34-31, over the Jags, in a game where both Trevor Lawrence and C.J. Stroud threw for over 300 yards. Something that I was on and was vocal about was that Trevor Lawrence and Parker Washington and really the whole Jacksonville offense was playing incredibly well and efficient across the first four weeks of the season. And so was their defense. So well that across those first four weeks, they were trailing on just 2.2% of their plays. Just for context and how absurd that is, it was the lowest in the NFL this season by 12.7% and the third lowest by any team since 2016. So 11 seasons. Those game scripts

5:40 completely muted those players' fantasy productions, but it wasn't sustainable at all. We have seen that completely flip over the last two weeks, kind of to the extreme, where Jacksonville has now trailed on 77% of their plays over the last two weeks. And it's been great for fantasy. Kind of the fantasy output you'd expect from a guy like Trevor Lawrence. 21 and 27 fantasy points over the last two weeks. Parker Washington had a massive week in week five.

6:05 His fantasy box score against the Texans was quiet. Still saw a team high 11 targets. He only caught four of those for 64 yards. Him and Tila were just like ever so slightly off. They were so close to two or three big gains and a walk-in touchdown. So the underlying usage on Parker Washington, still great. We got two receiving touchdowns out of Basial Tootin, which is something I mentioned last week, where he isn't going to be heavily involved in the pass game, but he's been really good when involved because he's so explosive. He caught all four of his targets for 48 yards and those two touchdowns.

6:37 Who else caught a touchdown? How about Travis Hunter? I think he's a stash in deeper leagues. He's probably available on your waiver wire because he's barely played at all on offense this season. I think we could start to see a shift in that. Every time he's on the field, he's producing. Brian Thomas Jr. is doing the opposite. In fact, BTJ did not play a single snap in the second half.

6:58 Starting to wonder what is his future in Jacksonville, if there is any future for him there I think he'd be on the move soon. I don't think we'll see Travis Hunter become a full-time offensive player at all this year, but I do think it could get to the point where he could easily be used in your flex. CJ Stroud played well. Again, he was dropping dimes. He goes 24 for 34 for 312 yards in three touchdowns. And CJ Stroud is now fantasy's QB five through six weeks.

7:29 He has scored over 20 fantasy points three times this season. He scored over 20 fantasy points just three times all of last season. With David Montgomery out, Woody Marks handled 15 of 21 running back carries. He goes for 56 yards on the ground, 25 through the air. Just that the Texans run game is not good. It's a brutal matchup against Jacksonville. They have the best rush defense in the league. So pretty good role for Woody Marks. A really bad spot. They play the Giants next week. So much softer matchup for him. This was the debut of Houston Texans Marvin Harrison Jr., as well. He was really eased in though. He ran just eight routes on 35 CJ Stroud dropbacks. It was clear intent to get him involved in his limited action though, which I think teams

8:13 tend to do when they acquire somebody like this. Four targets, three catches, 34 yards on just those eight routes. He will certainly play more and more moving forward. It'll be very interesting and something to monitor to see just how the routes and snaps are split up because this was also Jalen Knoll's best game of his career. Mini breakout for him, catches all four targets for 107 yards and a touchdown. I think Null is a really good player that just hasn't been given that much opportunity. But after this week, I wouldn't be rushing to jam him into your lineup. I'm more so in the mode of wait and see with him and with Marvin Harrison Jr. Because the floor potentially could be literally zero for them. And

8:53 so I'm kind of convinced that the usage is consistent. Patriots Jets marked the return of A.J. Brown. He ran 32 routes on 34 Drake May dropbacks. He had 10 targets, 33% target share, 40% air yard share. Those are elite numbers. The issue was, if you watch this game, he caught just three of those 10 targets for 27 yards. He had multiple drops. He dropped a wide open deep ball over his shoulder. I think there's just a little rust to knock off here. I view a 33% target share error.

9:25 And 40% area yard share as great things. Buy A.J. Brown was my move to make last week. He is still a major buy, if not a bigger buy, honestly, for me. If a league made us panicking after a down week where A.J. Brown did not look very good. On the other side, this also marked the return of Omar Cooper Jr., who was certainly less talked about, of course, than A.J. Brown, but he goes six for 103 in a touchdown on 26 routes, right behind Garrett Wilson's 31 routes. Reminder, Omar Cooper was a first round pick. The Jets have every reason to keep him heavily involved. Their next two games are against the Dolphins and the Raiders. Very friendly matchups.

10:04 If you are in need of wide receiver three or flex help, Omar Cooper is worth a bid. Steelers at Buccaneers was an overtime thriller with Pittsburgh coming out on top in the end, 26 to 19. I didn't have a ton of takeaways from the Tampa Bay side of things. But Sean Tucker was inactive and Bucky Irving handled 19 of 21 running back carries. So his role continues to be better than I had anticipated. Just a tough matchup against the Steelers. But Carolina next week, who is a team that ranks bottom 10 in fantasy points allowed per carry.

10:34 So do not panic on Bucky Irving. The split I really wanted to focus on was in Pittsburgh with Rico Dattle back in the lineup. Running back carries were Jalen Warren 14, Rico 7. Targets were Warren 4, Rico 4. Snaps, Warren 74%, Rico 28%. In weeks three, four, and five with Rico out, Jalen Warren was at a 91% snap share.

10:58 Pre-injury in weeks one and two, it was Warren 55%, Rico 42%. The 75-ish, 25-ish percent split seems about right. Certainly wasn't going to be 90% with Rico back in the lineup, but I thought with how good Jalen Warren had been playing with Rico out, there was no way it could go back to that 55% Warren, I'd expect something around 70, 30 the rest of the season. I think that's a good thing. Jeremy Bernard was also awesome.

11:26 He caught the eventual game-winning touchdown in overtime. In total, he saw 12 targets, hauled in 11 of those for 87 yards and that touchdown. One thing that I actually kind of like about his usage was that all 12 of those targets were under 10 air yards. They were layup targets, which is how Aaron Rodgers loves to play football now. So Jeremy Bernard seems like a safe week in and week out option, better in PPR leagues, but that's with both Michael Pittman and Roman Wilson on IR.

11:56 Bears at Falcons was a blowout, and then it wasn't, and it was almost a disaster for Chicago, but they hang on to beat Atlanta 31-23. And this was Caleb Williams back in action for the first time since his week two hamstring injury. I was really interested to track how often Caleb was gonna run coming back from that injury.

12:15 In weeks one and two, he had an outrageous 16.7% scramble run rate, also an average time to throw of 3.42 seconds. Well, in his first game back, he had just one scramble run for a 2.4% rate and an average time to throw of 3.02 seconds. Still a long time to throw, kind of compared to the league, but much less running around, ball out much quicker for Caleb Williams.

12:40 These are really good things. The way he was playing in the first two weeks was chaotic, It was off schedule. It was certainly fun and exciting on some plays, but not sustainable at all. Not to mention here he goes 30 of 36 for 305 yards and a touchdown. Super efficient game for him. Would love to see more of this play style from Caleb going forward. It's much better for his pass catchers too. Luther Burden catches all eight of his targets for 95 yards. Finally some life for Colson Loveland. He catches six of seven targets for 65 yards and a touchdown. Something to monitor though, and honestly frustrating for Luther Burden owners was he ran only 18 routes on 41 Caleb Williams dropbacks. So a 44% route

13:26 participation in the game, that is not good. I couldn't tell you why, because to me, Luther Burden is by far and away their best receiver. He has a team high 27% target rate, team high and pretty elite 2.3 yards per route, but he's just being used as a part-time player right now. He's still obviously worth starting every week because of his talent, because of the Bears offense.

13:48 It's just going to be kind of tough on his ceiling if he continues to be a part-time player. In New York, the Giants lose at home to the Saints, and we have to talk about this bizarre Cam Scadaboo situation. So before the game, a report came out that the Giants were going to give Najee Harris more carries at the expense of Cam Scadaboo, mainly because of Scadaboo's costly fumble in week five. And then the Giants come out against the Saints and give six carries to Tyrone Tracy, four to Devin Singletary, four to Najee Harris, and zero to Skadaboo. Truly a bizarre situation. John Harbaugh then said after the game that this wasn't by design to give Skadaboo zero carries. And that's just kind of how the

14:29 game went. No idea what's going on here. Regardless, Obviously, because of this situation, we cannot start any of the Giants' backfield moving forward until there's more clarity into what in the world is going on. J.J. McCarthy also came in after the Giants benched Jameis Winston. I'd say he was okay.

14:47 He was pretty productive, but it's never really pretty. The Giants' passing attack is so consolidated around Malik Nabors and Isaiah Likely that I'm fine sticking with both of them. pretty confidently, regardless of who's at quarterback. There's another 15 targets for Malik Nabors here. He catches 12 for 165 yards and likely hauls in six of 11 for 99 yards and a touchdown. Absurd target shares for the two of them now on the season. Nabors is at 29.6%. It's the third highest in the NFL. Likely 28.6%, sixth highest. Doesn't sound like at the moment the Giants know what they're going to do at quarterback in week seven against the Texans. So, Another situation to monitor there. Bills Raiders combined for 63

15:30 points in Las Vegas, but it was kind of a weird fantasy game because in that scenario, you'd assume Josh Allen had a monster fantasy game. Brock Bowers had a monster fantasy game. Ash and Jenty. But no, not really at all. Trey Tucker was the leading scorer in the game with 26.7 PPR points. And then James Cook was second with 24.3. And that's where I'll start the analysis because There was a lot of discussion about what James Cook's workload would look like with his fumbling issues. Well, he handled 22 of 24 running back carries, gained 95 yards on a touchdown on the ground while adding three catches for 58 yards to the air. So in the moment, his role is safe. He isn't currently getting punished for

16:09 the fumble issues. That is very apparent. But I will say, I do think he is one fumble away from being in trouble. The way he was running and protecting the ball against the Raiders was I would assume there was a conversation between him and the coaching staff that one more costly fumble could lead to some issues. If that scares you, I don't think James Cook is a bad sell high considering those circumstances and a week seven buy and then week eight and nine against the Ravens and Vikings.

16:37 You could trade him away. That is, of course, if you're getting the value back of a top 10 running back. Where there was a decrease in workload was with Ashton Gentry. We genuinely have no idea how healthy or rather unhealthy and banged up Ashton Gentry is. My eye test tells me pretty banged up. The numbers also say pretty banged up too. His missed tackles four straight last season was an elite number. It was 28.7%. That was the seventh best among running backs. It has tanked all the way down to 18.5%. That's the 10th lowest among running backs right now. There's no elusiveness or pop with him. And finally, for the first time this season, it led to a decreased workload. He got just 10 carries. Mike Washington, 9.

17:21 Dylan Lobby, 1. So a 50% carry share for Jenty. Was his lowest in the game this season. He played only 57% of snaps. Not sure if this was a one-game blip, but his workload is starting to trend in the wrong direction. Right as the Raiders are hitting a pretty brutal stretch in terms of upcoming games, opponent's fantasy points allowed per carry, with the Rams, Jets, 49ers, Seahawks, and Broncos. I've always been a big gentee guy. I root for the Raiders. He's another one where I would be okay selling. If you want to swap him for a wide receiver, guys I'd take in a one-for-one swap are like Matthew Golden, A.J. Brown, Zay Flowers. Quick note on the Raiders' tight ends too. If Michael Mayer is out there on your waiver wire, just go pick him up.

18:07 No one wants to actually roster him or play him because it looks like He's the tight end two on the team with Brock Bowers as the clear number one. But something that we've talked about is Brock Bowers is not being used as a tight end. He's being used as a wide receiver. Bowers has a line wide or in the slot on 79% of his snaps this season and just 19% as an in-line tight end. In fact, what is actually cool is since Bowers made his 2026 debut in week three against the Saints, Michael Mayer has played 81% of offensive snaps and ranks seventh in receiving yards among tight ends over that span. The tight end position is a mess for fantasy every week. The Raiders are going to be trailing in a lot of games

18:50 coming up. So go add Michael Mayer. All right, we end every episode with my one biggest move to make, whether that be buy a player, sell a player, or hold a player. My biggest move to make ahead of week seven is gonna be on a guy coming off a week six buy. and a four-point performance in Week 5 against the Dolphins, and that is by Tee Higgins. Efficiency-wise, Tee Higgins is actually having the best season of his career.

19:16 You wouldn't really know it. He has a career-high 26% target rate. He's put up a career-high 2.6 yards per route. He's also only scored one touchdown so far this season. That's coming off of 10 in 2024 and 11 in 2025. So he currently sits at a 2.3% touchdown rate after sitting at 10.1% the last two seasons. He is due for some big positive touchdown regression, which is going to start in week seven against the divisional rival Ravens that he has tagged for 29.3 and 28.9 PPRS. points and four touchdowns in his last two meetings against them. So go get yourself some Tee Higgins. All right, that's going to do it for the week six edition of the show.

20:00 We will be back every single Monday throughout the season, sifting through each week's data. Appreciate everyone for tuning in. We'll be right back here for week seven.