Week 3 Fantasy Football Recap: Is Jauan Jennings The Greatest 49ers WR Ever?
Another week of the fantasy football season is in the books. Jauan Jennings exploded, the Saints came back to Earth, and Andy Dalton made everyone wonder, “Just how bad was Bryce Young?”. Let’s break down some of Week 3’s action and take a look ahead to some DFS plays for Week 4.
Top Performances
Jauan Jennings: 41.0 Half-PPR Points
With Deebo Samuel, George Kittle, and Christian McCaffrey out, this was supposed to be a big game for Jordan Mason and Brandon Aiyuk against a beleaguered Rams team. Instead, Jennings exploded for 175 yards and three touchdowns on 11 catches (12 targets).
After this massive outing, Jennings is the fantasy WR2. Not just for Week 3, but for the season. Anyone who happened to start Jennings, likely in desperation, almost certainly won their matchups. However, don’t overreact to this incredible explosion. Jennings is, for now, still the third option on the 49ers’ offense. He will only continue to slide down the pecking order as the team gets healthy. In the best case, he’s a flex option for a few weeks. More likely, he immediately drops a dud in Week 4 after everyone rushes to put him in their lineups.
Saquon Barkley: 31.6 Half-PPR Points
If we drafted again right now, Saquon would be in the conversation to be the first overall pick. This is already his second appearance as one of the top performers of the week, and he still managed a solid 15.6 points in his lone “down” week. All of the concerns about his age, lack of receiving work, and the tush push seem so irrelevant now. Barkley is a talented back seeing massive volume on a good offense — he’s going to eat all season long.
Jayden Daniels: 28.06 Half-PPR Points
Through three weeks, it looks as though Jayden Daniels might be who every fantasy analyst (myself included) wanted Anthony Richardson to be. After showing out against the Bengals on Monday Night Football, Daniels is second to only fantasy football machine Josh Allen in quarterback scoring.
The third overall pick in this year’s NFL Draft has gotten it done both on the ground and in the air, with at least 10 carries in every game and an 80.3% completion percentage. Through two weeks, that percentage was inflated by plenty of short throws, as his ADOT was below 6.0 in each of his first two NFL games. But, in case you didn’t see it. Daniels was let loose last night, completing 21 of 23 passes on an ADOT above 10, including multiple deep bombs. He may have some classic rookie up and downs throughout the season, but Daniels is a must-start fantasy quarterback going forward.
Biggest Duds
Mark Andrews: 0.0 Half-PPR Points
Somehow, this outing for Andrews was even worse than the 0.0 fantasy points he scored would imply. Depending on the source you use, he ran somewhere between four and six routes on Sunday. That’s not just bad; it’s straight-up unusable. Sure, the Ravens hardly had to pass with a big lead against the Cowboys, but a supposedly healthy Andrews running roughly the same amount of routes as Charlie Kolar is unprecedentedly terrible.
Andrews now has a grand total of 9.5 fantasy points through three weeks, and both his usage and production are trending downward. Whether he’s injured, bad at blocking, or just old, he has gone from the featured piece of this Ravens offense to hardly an afterthought. It’s hard to recommend dropping Andrews already, but I certainly wouldn’t rush to add him if he became available in any of my shallower leagues.
Rashid Shaheed: 0.0 Half-PPR Points
It is perhaps harsh to list Shaheed as a dud, as just two weeks ago no one would have been too surprised to see a bust from the third-year speedster. But after back-to-back big weeks to start the season, Shaheed was likely started in most leagues for his Week 3 donut.
On some level, this is simply an issue with Shaheed’s profile. His two big weeks to start the season came on four and three receptions, with the vast majority of his production coming from two deep touchdowns (one per week). In Week 3, Shaheed still had the deep targets, but he and Derek Carr failed to connect.
For the season, Shaheed still has a solid 21.5% target share and a massive 47.2% air yards share in this Saints offense. He should certainly have more big games, but there may be another dud or two as well.
Rhamondre Stevenson: 0.3 Half-PPR Fantasy Points
Stevenson’s situation is very similar to Shaheed’s. After two productive outings to start his 2024 campaign, Stevenson was absolutely bottled up by the Jets on Thursday night. He went from over 20 carries in each of the first two games to just six against New York, also failing to record a single target. A fumble further pushed his fantasy score down to just barely more than you and I scored this week.
Moving forward, Stevenson will likely land somewhere in between his hot first two weeks and his miserable Week 3. As long as the Patriots can keep games competitive, they clearly plan to feed him early and often … the question is how consistently New England will be able to keep games competitive. With a good defense and the potential for Drake Maye to give the offense a spark at some point this season, the Patriots shouldn’t have too many more truly terrible games. While this outing did raise a few red flags and merits a spot in this section, it will likely end up as a blip in an overall solid season from Stevenson, not the beginning of a massive downfall.
Sneaky Storylines
The Gus Bus Has Reached its Last Stop
Their overall offensive struggles overshadowed it, but the Chargers made an important change on Sunday. After giving Gus Edwards more attempts and nearly as many snaps as J.K. Dobbins through the first two weeks, they made Dobbins the clear lead back in Week 3. Dobbins finished the day with a 64% snap share and a 75% rush share, up from 53% and 38% over the first two weeks.
I would recommend buying low on Dobbins, who managed just 6.9 points against a tough Steelers defense, but the best move might actually be to wait one more week. The Chargers face the Chiefs next week and will likely do so without Justin Herbert, who is dealing with an ankle injury. Even in his new expanded role, Dobbins will face tough sledding in that situation. LA then has their bye in Week 5, which should provide a perfect opportunity to trade for Dobbins, who should provide RB2 value now that he has officially claimed the lead role in this offense.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s Usage is Great
Outside of his big Week 2, JSN’s sophomore season so far doesn’t look like much of a step up from his disappointing rookie year. He saw just five targets in Weeks 1 and 3 combined, catching all five for just 58 yards. However, his under-the-hood usage has been vastly different.
For one, JSN is running far more routes than he did as a rookie. In 2023, his route participation rate was just 71.0%; so far in 2024, he’s at 84.1%. Even with Tyler Lockett off the injury report, he led the Seahawks in routes on Sunday, seven more routes than Lockett and four more than DK Metcalf. Smith-Njigba is also seeing more real usage down the field. Although he is still running 85% of his routes from the slot, his ADOT is up to 9.0 from 6.4 as a rookie.
Especially with the way Geno Smith is playing, this new and improved usage should translate to more big games for JSN going forward. He’s a great buy-low candidate if you can make a trade happen.
Brock Bowers’ Usage Is Trending Down
In last week’s article, I was all-in on Brock Bowers as one of the few remaining elite fantasy TEs for the rest of the season. While I still think he will get there eventually, that declaration may have been a bit premature. In Week 3, Bowers ran a route on just 60% of the Raiders’ dropbacks. That was down from 65% in Week 2, which in turn was down from 78% in Week 1. This is the opposite of the positive trend we would hope to see from a talented rookie. And a 60% route participation rate is rough on fantasy production — it’s not surprising he had a mediocre day, catching just three passes for 41 yards.
However, I don’t expect this trend to continue. Bowers ranks third among qualified tight ends with 2.35 yards per route run. That is also first on the Raiders, well clear of Davante Adams in second at 1.66. As the Raiders’ offense struggles for answers, they will eventually come to their senses and put the first-round rookie on the field. I recommend trying to trade for him before they do.
Early Week 4 NFL DFS Plays
RB Breece Hall, New York Jets
As crazy as this is to say about a top-six running back through three weeks, we haven’t really seen a ceiling game from Breece Hall yet. He hasn’t broken any massive plays, and Braelon Allen vulturing two touchdowns in Week 2 didn’t help. Hall also has yet to see huge volume on the ground, never seeing more than 16 carries in a game. However, he has had elite receiving usage, with a 20.2% target share that easily ranks first among all running backs.
If he can combine that receiving involvement with a 20-carry or two-touchdown game (or both), Breece can have a truly week-winning performance. Given that the Jets are favored by 7.5 points at home against the Broncos (who rank in the bottom six in both PFF Run Defense Grade and PFF Tackling Grade), this is a great week for it.
RB Carson Steele, Kansas City Chiefs
While his final stat line of 7.9 Half-PPR points was fairly mediocre, Steele’s usage in the Chiefs’ first week without Isiah Pacheco was extremely encouraging. The UDFA rookie played 64% of Kansas City’s snaps and handled 17 rushing attempts to Samaje Perine’s six, including both of the team’s two goal-line carries. He even ran more routes than the veteran, 18 to 11, although he caught just one of his two targets for only two receiving yards.
In Week 4, the Chiefs will face the Chargers, who will likely be without Justin Herbert. They are already favored by a massive eight points. This looks like a perfect situation for the rookie to rack up 20 carries and score his first NFL touchdown. (No, I’m not worried that the Chiefs have officially called up Kareem Hunt.)
WR Michael Wilson, Arizona Cardinals
This is more of a tournament play, as Wilson does come with a potentially low floor. But he has a cheap price to match, and things are lining up excellently for the sophomore out of Stanford to have a huge outing on Sunday.
As Ja’Marr Chase showed last night, the matchup with the Commanders is excellent for wide receivers. Washington provides the perfect combination of fast-paced, effective offense and lackluster secondary play to allow opposing WRs to thrive.
Meanwhile, Trey McBride is currently in the concussion protocol. If he is out, Wilson should step in alongside Marvin Harrison Jr. as Kyler Murray’s second target. Even with McBride healthy, Wilson saw nine targets against Detroit in Week 3. He won’t need that many to make an impact against the Commanders’ secondary.