Rhamondre is Going Down with the Patriots 😬

Just when you thought D.J. Moore was the WR1 on the week, the Bengals passing game found its feet.

What’s in store:

• Injuries aplenty for some of the top playmakers 🤕. Justin Jefferson, Travis Kelce, and Anthony Richardson all made trips to the blue tent Sunday.

• The Zack Moss RB1 train is chugging right along! 🚂 Jonathan Taylor was limited, but Moss might have made a case to remain a part of the offense moving forward.

• Volume can’t save the Patriots RBs. The offense hasn’t functioned for two games now.

• Looks like the Rams WRs will be just fine 😎. The future looks bright for Kupp and Nacua.

• Vikings WR Justin Jefferson suffers hamstring injury in loss to Chiefs, extent remains unclear

  • Cooper Kupp shakes his hamstring injury and Justin Jefferson assumes the title for the biggest name dealing with a hamstring injury the same week. Jefferson left the game after his quietest outing of the season and didn’t return, which certainly isn’t a good sign – but the full details of the injury are likely to emerge in the coming days, and we’ll have a better idea of how to treat his situation moving forward. At this point, it’s too early to tell whether or not he’ll miss significant time, but at any rate, having arguably the top fantasy wide receiver leave a game and not return is bad news and should be monitored closely this week.

• Chiefs TE Travis Kelce exits game vs Vikings and returns to finish it after suffering low-ankle sprain

  • His return to the field was promising and he was able to play the rest of the way, even reeling in a touchdown to save the day for his fantasy managers. That’s enough to suggest that he’ll be fine to play moving forward, but don’t be surprised if we see Kelce log some limiteds or even miss some practices early in the week as he manages the injury. There remains no real competition for Travis Kelce in the Chiefs offense, so as long as Kelce is playing, he should be in starting lineups moving forward even if he’s not at 100%.

• Anthony Richardson suffers shoulder injury in win vs. Titans, doesn’t return to game

  • Through his four starts, Richardson has dealt with a new injury in three of those four games: a bone bruise in Week 1, a concussion in Week 2, and now what looks like an AC sprain in Week 5. An third unfortunate break for Richardson in his short career so far, as the injury occurred on his throwing arm and could sideline him once again. The good news for the Colts offensive playmakers: Gardner Minshew has looked more than capable commanding the offense, and receivers like Michael Pittman Jr. and Josh Downs shouldn’t see their stock lowered too much as a result of the quarterback change. Obviously, keep an eye on the reports this week to see just what the situation is with Richardson, but there’s a chance that the dynamic rookie signal caller could miss time.

• One of the biggest surprises of the day: Zack Moss literally has no change in his role. He started the game, he played on 80% of the snaps, saw 23 carries which made up 79% of the RB carries, and went on to have a stupid good fantasy day - 195 total yards and 2 TDs.

• First of all, ok, JT needs to get ramped up, you don’t want to give him his full workload - but the fact that Moss did this against the Titans, who were allowing 3.1 yards/carry to RBs is shocking. One of the best rushing defenses in the NFL, if not the best - this was such a head scratching outcome. The Colts just paid JT too… so there is no chance that Moss continues to be the guy despite Moss showing that Indy should simply not completely take him away. They just made JT the highest paid RB in football, and Jim Irsay is probably saying, “see this is why I didn’t want to pay Jonathan Taylor, because the RB position is replaceable”. And I’m not saying that Moss is better than JT by any stretch, but you can find guys to plug in if you need them to… look at how Moss played in these first four games with JT. Are you telling me that the Colts missed JT?

• The Panthers paid Miles Sanders, and Chuba Hubbard is doing his thing too… Najee Harris is being outperformed by Jaylen Warren… but hey, on a long enough sample size, JT is going to be the guy you want, obviously. But this was such an interesting way for this to unfold - and at the same time, there’s no way JT doesn’t become the guy in a few weeks. What do we do next week? I have no idea. But I do know that JT is not a safe start next week unless we hear something that causes us to feel otherwise, and I’d probably rank Moss as a RB2. He’s also risky because we don’t know when the rug gets pulled from underneath him, but Moss’ performance increased the length of that leash, assuming there is one.

• DeVon Achane can’t stop. Another 151 yards rushing on only 11 carries. Raheem Mostert had a good game too with 10 carries for 65 yards and a TD (6.5 yards per carry), which was awesome. But Achane is just on a different level - alien level. He now has a 100-yard rushing game, a 150-yard game, and a 200 yard rushing game over the last three weeks. He’s 2nd in the NFL in rushing yards, he’s a RB1 play - not on volume, but on efficiency and skill. And he gets Carolina in Week 6. He’s going to go off.

• If you think that this is not sustainable, you’re right. But if you want to sell because of that, you want to “sell high”, I would not do that. This dude is special, and I’m holding tight, even if this efficiency is unsustainable. I can see that efficiency going down, but the volume going up a little bit - this offense makes up for a lot of the volume issues most weeks.

• Rhamondre Stevenson and Zeke Elliott split touches down the middle. There are multiple things at play here; Rhamondre was banged up coming into this game, didn’t get a full practice in, but even before this game, things were not good for Rhamondre - so what’s going on? First of all, this offense stinks. Second, he’s not getting targeted anywhere near the rate he was being targeted at last year, despite this offense not having any other real weapons in the pass game. Last year, 17% target share, 25% targets per route run. This year, coming into this game: 10% target share, 15% targets per route - that reduces his floor very significantly.

• Forget the goal line role we were all afraid of Zeke taking - these guys had one total attempt combined inside the 5 yard line, and that went to Rhamondre. If this offense turns around, we will see more success, but until then, with Zeke taking away 31% of the rushing attempts (in this past game it was 50%) and also taking away some passing snaps and 2 minute snaps, things aren’t ideal for Rhamondre right now. And he’s a low-end RB2 at best at the moment.

Rams WR Cooper Kupp made his 2023 season debut in Week 5 against the Eagles, and he made an immediate impact in the passing game despite the loss to Philadelphia. There was concern regarding what Puka Nacua’s workload would look like with Kupp in the lineup, but the early returns suggest that there’s room for both star receivers to be strong fantasy starts moving forward.

Both Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua saw double-digit targets on the day, with Kupp edging out the latter in utilization. Ultimately, though, it was Nacua who finished with the higher fantasy output, albeit just three tenths of a point more. Both registered over a 30% target share on the day, and the tight target distribution at the top of the depth chart should have fantasy managers licking their chops at what could become one of the most productive tandems at receiver in the NFL.

Also notable in this game: Rams HC Sean McVay said that Kupp wouldn’t be on a snap count in his return, and he made good on that promise. Kupp ended up missing just three plays on the day, while Puka Nacua saw 100% of the team’s snaps. With the Rams slated to continue passing at a high rate with a fully healthy set of receiving weapons, we can expect to see high-end WR2 production on a regular basis from both pass catchers.