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1126: 10 Trends for Week 2

STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.

19 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Sep 16, 2026
Published
Wed, September 16, 2026
8
Player insights
8
Players mentioned
Topics
Antonio WilliamsDavid NjokuDe'Von AchaneDK MetcalfJalen CokerKenneth Walker IIIPatrick MahomesSaquon Barkley
Player analysis

Player insights

8

Antonio Williams

PositiveSleeper18:29

Antonio Williams is a player to monitor after seeing a 40% target rate on his limited routes in Week 1. While his overall usage was low, he is being deployed as a direct backup to Stefon Diggs and may see an increased role as he gains experience playing outside.

Insight page

David Njoku

PositiveUsage20:29

David Njoku's Week 1 usage was concerning, with a 64.5% route share and a career-low 15% target-per-route-run rate. Increased competition from rookies Denzel Boston and Casey Concepcion, combined with the Browns' reliance on 11 personnel, creates a difficult path for him to replicate last year's production.

Insight page

De'Von Achane

NegativeUsage2:34

Devon Achane saw an improved 88% snap share and 61% rush share in Week 1, but his target rate dropped to 18.5% compared to 24% last year. He finished with 12.1 expected PPR points, below his 15.5 average from last season, and the Dolphins' offense struggled overall.

Insight page

DK Metcalf

PositiveValue17:04

DK Metcalf is a buy-low candidate after underperforming his expected points by nearly 10 PPR points in Week 1. His usage was elite, ranking 5th in route share and 14th in target share, with only Chris Olave recording more air yards.

Insight page

Jalen Coker

PositiveBreakout7:18

Jalen Coker is a legitimate fantasy asset, not a one-week wonder, averaging 17.4 PPR points over his last seven games including playoffs. He has out-targeted Xavier Legette (T-Max) 45-41 with a superior 2.48 yards per route run rate.

Insight page

Kenneth Walker III

PositiveUsage5:18

Kenneth Walker saw elite usage in Week 1 with a 72% snap share, 74% rush share, and 46% route share (excluding garbage time). His expected fantasy total was 20.9 PPR points, and he led the league with 107 yards after contact. JJ Zachariason ranks him as a top-five running back.

Insight page

Patrick Mahomes

NegativeProjection14:06

Despite a solid fantasy finish in Week 1 aided by rushing, Patrick Mahomes struggled as a passer, failing to complete a single pass of 10+ air yards. JJ Zachariason remains skeptical of his passing upside based on this performance and his 2023 deep-ball metrics.

Insight page

Saquon Barkley

NegativeUsage12:19

Saquon Barkley's Week 1 usage was concerning, with a career-low 21% route share in games with a 50% snap rate, as Will Shipley handled two-minute drill duties. While his efficiency was hampered by a poor offensive line, he remains a hold due to upcoming matchups against the Titans and Bears.

Insight page
Full transcript

Episode Transcript

213
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1:05This is the Late Round Podcast with your host, JJ Zacharyarysen.
1:09JJ Zacharyarysen. What's up everyone, it's JJ Zacharyarysen, and in this episode 1126 of the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast, thanks for tuning in.
1:17Did you guys know that we send content via the Late Round Newsletter?
1:21It's true. And it's free. You can get the 15 transactions column directly to your inbox every Tuesday morning.
1:27We'll have some matchup stuff for you from Brandon Gadula.
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1:37You can learn more and subscribe to that newsletter by heading to lateround.com.
1:41Now let's get to this week's 10 trends. We finally got to see what this Miami Dolphins offense is going to look like with Malik Willis under center.
1:51And I would say that overall, it wasn't great.
1:54Which was kind of predictable. Devon Achan is the only significant player in that offense from a fantasy perspective.
2:00Everyone else was a late round dart throw in drafts.
2:03And I'd say week one was not the best for Achan.
2:07He had pretty good peripherals, to be fair. His 88% snap share was better than the 75% snap share that he had last year.
2:15He ran a route on 73% of Miami's dropbacks.
2:18That was 72% last year. His rush share was 61% on Sunday.
2:22It was 56% last season. But he wasn't targeted at the same rate.
2:2624% of his routes run resulted in a target last year.
2:30That was 18.5% in week one. That's still good.
2:33But it's not as elite as last season. He also didn't create explosive runs at nearly the same rate.
2:39Though that could just be a small sample size thing.
2:42Regardless, in the end, Achan finished with just 12.1 expected PPR points against the Raiders.
2:47In what was considered a pretty good matchup. Last year, his expected PPR points per game average was 15.5.
2:54So we're talking like 3.5 more points than expected points per game.
2:58He's not like a sell for me right now.
3:01But the Dolphins ranking bottom 5 in EPA per play after a game against the Raiders, it's not making me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside.
3:10They've got time though to turn things around. It's a new offense.
3:14It's a new system. And patience is key when that's the case.
3:18We've got to talk about Kenneth Walker's usage on Monday night.
3:22And for purposes of this discussion, I'm going to take out the final drive of that game that was just pure garbage time.
3:29That happened with about 4.5 minutes left. Up until that point, Walker had a 72% snap share, a 74% rush share, and a 46% route share.
3:38He had 6 targets. He had a target on 40% of his routes run.
3:42So again, he had a 72% snap share. In his four seasons in Seattle, those numbers were 49%, 65%, 57%, and 61%.
3:50He had a 74% rush share. In those four seasons with the Seahawks, those numbers were 48%, 43%, 60%, and 55%.
3:57And then like I said, he had a 46% route share.
4:00In four seasons in Seattle, those numbers were 38%, 46%, 35%, and 41%.
4:05So if we just assume that week one's usage just continues rest of season, he's going to see far better usage than
4:12he has ever seen in the NFL. His expected fantasy total on Monday night was 20.9 PPR points.
4:18Last year, his expected points per game was 10.5.
4:21I mean, if this keeps up, we're talking about a top five running back in fantasy football.
4:27That's where I have him ranked right now. Especially with the way that he ran.
4:32He produced 107 yards on the ground after contact.
4:35That was the most in the league in week one.
4:38The usage overall was amazing. Jalen Coker was rostered in too many leagues for me to shout him out on the 15 transaction show yesterday.
4:46But I had a couple of people ask about him, so let's talk about Coker.
4:51Coker was a late round dart throw in the draft guide this year.
4:55So while his week one performance was definitely surprising, I don't think anyone thought that he would be the top wide receiver
5:03in fantasy football after a week of games. But I'm not totally surprised that he had a good week.
5:09He was featured on last week's Sleepers episode. This actually extends beyond just this game.
5:14Including the playoffs, over the Panthers' last seven games, Coker's averaging 17.4 PPR points per game.
5:19His route share is at 86% and he's seen a target on over 23% of his routes run.
5:25He's out-targeted Teddero McMillan 45-41 over this time frame.
5:28He has a 2.48 yards per route run rate to T-Max 1.75.
5:32This isn't to say that I like Coker more than T-Max from here on out.
5:37I think McMillan can be fine. But Coker's not some one-week wonder.
5:41He's been working and he's been getting better since he entered the league.
5:45So if he's somehow out there on your waiver wire, yes, you need to add him.
5:51With the NFL's shift to heavier personnel the last few years, and with it being really noticeable last year, I've been talking
5:58more and more about usage when two or fewer wide receivers are on the field at once.
6:04Because when that happens, we tend to see the wide receivers who are actually on the field get better efficiency.
6:10Better per route run metrics, yards, targets, and points per route run.
6:14I talked specifically about this with Lad McConkie. Mike McDaniel has historically run offenses with less 11 personnel.
6:20It stems from how Kyle Shanahan does things. And Lad has been much better with fewer wide outs on the field with him.
6:28In week one, here are the teams year over year who saw the biggest jumps in percentage of plays with two or fewer wide receivers on the field.
6:37So these are teams who saw an uptick in percentage of plays with two or fewer wide outs on the field.
6:44Now keep in mind, GameScript can play a role here.
6:47But I think some of these teams make a ton of sense given what we talked about entering the season.
6:54Their coaching shifts and what they did in the draft.
6:57So I'll call out six teams who saw an increase of 18 percentage points or more.
7:03Vegas led the way at plus 27.5. So almost 28 percentage points.
7:07That's the Clint Kubiak effect. Unfortunately, their wide receivers just aren't very good.
7:11Number two was Jacksonville. They went up 27.3. Now, Brian Thomas was banged up a bit in that game and they had a nice positive game script.
7:20But that's definitely something to monitor, especially given how they handled this year's NFL draft.
7:25Third and fourth were the Vikings and the Jets at plus 22.8.
7:29The Chargers, even in a bad game script, they were plus 20.5.
7:33And then the Giants were plus 18.1, which could really end up being good for Malik Neighbors.
7:39Those are just some numbers to think about. Saquon Barkley had some low-key bizarre usage and annoying usage in week one.
7:45He ran a route on just 21% of Philadelphia's dropbacks.
7:49He actually ran as many routes as Will Shipley did.
7:52Barkley's route share was 61% last year. His share against the Commanders was the lowest of his career in a game with a 50% snap rate.
8:01Now, a huge reason for this is that Will Shipley saw Philadelphia's two-minute snaps.
8:05He played 100% of their snaps in that mode.
8:08He ran five routes. Barkley didn't have any. Now, I don't know if this is going to be a thing for the Eagles moving forward.
8:17But if it is a thing, it's kind of a problem, a small problem for Saquon Barkley's upside.
8:23The offensive line also didn't play well in week one, and it showed in the data.
8:28Barkley had just a .33 yards before contact per rush.
8:31He actually was sixth in yards after contact on the ground in week one.
8:36Fortunately, there is some hope. The Eagles get the Titans and then the Bears over their next two games.
8:42So I wouldn't be out there selling Saquon Barkley just yet.
8:46I talked about Patrick Mahomes' deep ball rate and deep ball effectiveness on last week's 10 trends episode, and he was good in fantasy football in week one.
8:55The rushing touchdown, his mobility in general, was a pleasant surprise.
8:59But watching that game, I didn't walk away thinking, Patrick Mahomes is back.
9:03It was a tough matchup. So it's not like this is some concrete take.
9:08I just didn't think that he looked amazing in week one as a thrower.
9:12And looking at the data, it backed that up.
9:15He was the only starting quarterback who finished a game, so Kyler Murray doesn't count here, who didn't complete a single pass
9:23that traveled 10 or more air yards. And keep in mind, this is coming off a season where he ranked outside the top 20 in that statistic.
9:32We'll see with Mahomes. Like I said, I thought his mobility did look good and fine.
9:37And that's shocking considering the ACL. And the Chiefs have what looks like a great run game.
9:43But I still wasn't quite there with Mahomes as a passer in week one.
9:47I kind of hinted at this on yesterday's 15 transactions episode, but the Steelers really pushed the ball down the field in week one.
9:55Aaron Rodgers had his highest average at the target as a Pittsburgh Steeler.
9:59Only seven quarterbacks had a higher ADOT than Rodgers in week one, when he was literally at the bottom of the league last year in ADOT.
10:08The problem in week one is that he just didn't connect.
10:12He didn't have a single completion on a 20-plus air yard throw.
10:16And his 10-plus air yard completion rate was bottom five.
10:19It was only better than Dak Prescott, Cam Ward, Kirk Cousins, and the aforementioned Patrick Mahomes.
10:24But a big beneficiary of this was DK Metcalf.
10:27He was second worst in the league this past week behind only Jamison Williams in terms of underperforming his expected points per game.
10:35He left almost 10 PPR points on the table based on his usage.
10:39But that usage was obviously really great. He was fifth among wide receivers in route share.
10:45He was 14th in target share. And only Chris Alave had more air yards than DK Metcalf.
10:50I would consider Metcalf a buy right now, but it's a little bit more volatile than the Jamison Williams buy.
10:57The one that I talked about yesterday. Because unlike Williams, we don't know if this is really going to keep up.
11:04But as it stands, I was probably too low on Metcalf heading into the season.
11:09We'll see what happens moving forward though. I didn't mind Antonio Williams as a prospect.
11:14He was in that group of wideouts from this year's class that went day two, where none of them had like elite profiles.
11:21But there was some stuff about Williams' profile that I did like.
11:25He actually got a Lad McConkie comp in the ZAP model.
11:29When the commander signed Stefan Diggs though, it kind of wiped my enthusiasm for Williams here in 2026.
11:35But after seeing how week one went down, I won't be surprised if he's playing a more legitimate role for this team at some point this year.
11:44The usage was understandably weak. He only ran a route on 26% of Washington's dropbacks.
11:49But he did see a target on 40% of those routes run.
11:53And here's something fun with small samples. He had a 6.4 yards per route run rate.
11:58I just thought it was a worthwhile call out on today's show because Deami Brown ran the third most routes for the commanders at wide receiver on Sunday.
12:07They were deployed differently. Brown had a 14% slot share, Williams 50%.
12:11Williams is more of that direct backup to Stefan Diggs.
12:15Stefan Diggs, he had a 56% slot share. But they talked about this in the preseason.
12:20The commanders think that Williams has a chance to play outside.
12:24If that's the case, then there's a chance that we see more Williams sooner rather than later.
12:29Harold Fanning kind of had it bad in week one.
12:33His route share was 64.5%, which was 19th among tight ends.
12:36Aside from week 17 last year when he was hurt, he hadn't been at that low of a route share since week 11.
12:44And unfortunately, he was only targeted on 15% of his routes.
12:48That was the lowest mark of any single game of his entire career, which obviously just spans back to last season.
12:54Now, Fanning was kind of a worrisome pick this year because his target shares were just insane down the stretch last season.
13:02It was going to be tough for him to maintain that, especially when Shador Sanders wasn't going to be under center to start the season.
13:10But mostly it was the fact that the Browns had more competition at pass catcher this year.
13:16And we saw that come to life in week one.
13:19They have three viable enough wide receivers in their two rookies in Denzel Boston and Casey Concepcion, and then there's Jerry Judy.
13:26Cleveland ran out of 11 personnel at the 7th highest rate in the league this past week.
13:32And a problem was that Fanning's targets per outrun rate, it dropped when the Browns were trailing by double digit points.
13:39And it was just 14% when the Browns ran out of 11 personnel.
13:43Last year, Fanning did see a very small uptick in targets per outrun when he was in 12 personnel versus 11.
13:50Now, I'm not trying to have everyone panic here and sell Harold Fanning right now.
13:55I do think some of my priors were confirmed though after one game, but it was also just one game.
14:02And he's a really good player. But my overall concern just solely based on one week, because that's all we have right now, it would be this.
14:11It's an offense with more useful weapons now. And if they do trail a lot, it could lead to more 11 personnel.
14:18And traditionally, that's been a slightly worse thing for Harold Fanning.
14:22I'm going to end today's show with a trend that I think everyone who plays fantasy football needs to hear.
14:28I just kind of said it with Harold Fanning a second ago.
14:32I don't want you to take things from this week's show and just start panicking.
14:37I'm merely providing information from what we saw in week one.
14:41Some of these trends are going to stick, some of them won't stick.
14:45That's how it goes with a one game sample.
14:48And speaking of that one game sample, how important is it?
14:52Well, the answer to that is that it's not nothing, but it's definitely not something.
14:57I know, super helpful. But no, seriously. I ran some numbers yesterday where I looked at the connection between week one points
15:04per game versus the entirety of a player's season in points per game.
15:08So week one was initially included in this analysis.
15:11This is more of a descriptive thing right now, not a predictive thing.
15:16To limit my sample of relevant players, I looked only at end of season top 24 quarterbacks and top 24 tight ends,
15:23and then top 48 wide receivers and top 48 running backs.
15:27So the question is, how correlated is week one's production in points per game versus total season points per game?
15:33And the answer is, it kind of is when you include week one performance, but it's also dependent on the position.
15:40In order of importance, week one performance matters most for running back, then tight end, then quarterback, and then wide receiver.
15:47So if you have Jalen Waddell, maybe you have Marvin Harrison Jr.
15:51or some other wide receiver who didn't come through in week one, there is some hope.
15:57Running back likely has the highest correlation because of what I always talk about on this show, and what I talked about last week with Austin Eckler.
16:05Running back usage comes down to a coaching decision, and that coaching decision is likely going to be pretty consistent all year long across a larger sample.
16:14With wide receivers, you just see more volatility. For all you nerds out there, the R-squared values here are about 24% at
16:22running back versus 14% at wide receiver. But here's the thing, if you're looking at how well week one points per game
16:29explains future performance in that season, the correlations are actually far worse.
16:33Because in the exercise that I just described, I'm including week one data.
16:37Since there are only 17 games, that naturally accounts for a decent chunk of those games.
16:43So how a player performs in week one is going to correlate more strongly to total season production.
16:49So I also looked at week one points per game versus points per game from week two onward.
16:55It's the same sample. Top 24 quarterbacks and tight ends.
16:58Top 48 wide receivers and running backs. And the R-squared values predictably drop.
17:02Because we're now seeing how much week one explains that future performance.
17:06Quarterback is just 5%. Running back is 13%. Wide receiver 4%.
17:10And tight ends 7%. So this is all to say, relax everyone.
17:14Don't panic. It's a long season and we're just getting started.
17:17That's it for today's show though. Thanks to all of you for listening.
17:22If you yet subscribed to the Late Round Fantasy Football Podcast, make sure you are messaging for it pretty much anywhere podcasts can be found.
17:30And don't forget to follow me on Twitter and on Blue Sky at LateRoundQB.
17:35Thanks for listening everyone. I'll catch you tomorrow with the weekly sleepers episode.
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