Is This Superstar RB BACK?! 😱

THINGS WE LEARNED IN WEEK 5 🤔📚

The Cowboys Aren't as Serious of a Contender as We Thought 💭

The Cowboys’ Super Bowl hopes took a bit of a hit on Sunday night, getting steamrolled by the San Francisco 49ers 42-10. It was a bad game on every front, as their “vaunted” defense gave up FOUR touchdown passes to former Mr. Irrelevant, Brock Purdy.

Now, this doesn’t mean they’re out of it. They’re still 3-2, arguably in a good position in a weaker NFC, and have a lot of talented pieces. However, their weaknesses have been exposed.

You can target the middle of the field against them, where George Kittle ran rampant. You can run it up the gut, which we saw James Conner do in Week 3, and again with Christian McCaffrey and Jordan Mason last night.

Worst of all, though? Dak Prescott looks painfully average. Some people have thought this for years, but it was always masked by Kellen Moore's above-average playcalling. Now that he’s gone, though, the flaws are being exposed.

The Patriots Need to Blow It All Up 💣

If you’ve been paying attention, this arguably should have happened the minute Tom Brady walked away from 1 Patriot Place for the final time in 2020. However, the Patriots selected Mac Jones as the heir apparent in the 2021 NFL Draft, hoping that he would be the savior to extend Bill Belichick’s legacy.

That obviously hasn’t happened, and now Jones has been benched, started, and benched again in back-to-back games. It’s painfully obvious that he is not the answer for this football team and it’s obvious that this team needs to tear it all down.

Fire Belichick (or let him retire peacefully). Hire a real GM who can draft well (Bill never could). Don’t bring in someone from his coaching tree. It all has to come down eventually.

Robert Kraft needs to do this. Belichick isn’t the sole reason for this mess, but he’s at least part of the problem due to his stubbornness. This team needs someone else to lead them out of the abyss.

4 PLAYERS YOU NEED TO TARGET ON WAIVERS 🎯

Every week, our Scott Engel dives deep into the waiver wire to scour players that you should be picking up to get ahead of the rest of your leaguemates. Let’s take a look at this week’s top adds:

QB: Russell Wilson, Denver Broncos (52%)

The Broncos continue to look terrible overall under Sean Payton. Wilson lost a critical fumble in a loss to the New York Jets on Sunday, but he had been performing better than last season before that matchup and can be a decent streaming option for fantasy football players suddenly in need of QB help.

The former Seahawks star is not the same type of dynamic playmaker he was in his best seasons, but he still throws a good deep ball and should provide some quality fantasy outings.

Wilson has two 300-yard games and two three-TD pass outings in his last four games.

Russell Wilson FAAB Bid: 9% of your available budget.

RB: Roschon Johnson, Chicago Bears (54%)

Khalil Herbert’s ankle injury pushes Johnson into the starting RB role for the Bears for at least a few weeks, but he is recovering from a concussion that clouds his outlook for Week 6.

Still, Johnson has been a reported internal favorite in Chicago and will be the most sought-after player on the Week 6 fantasy football waiver wire.

Johnson is averaging 4.8 yards per carry and already has a six-reception game this season. He is a physical runner who should produce good fantasy totals with a regular amount of rushing attempts.

Roschon Johnson FAAB Bid: 45% of your available budget, or more if your league bids very aggressively. Also bid 9% on D’Onta Foreman, who will be the top complement and could possibly start in Week 6 if Johnson is not cleared.

WR: Josh Downs, Indianapolis Colts (26%)

As I forecasted in my weekly fantasy football sleepers feature, Downs came through with his best performance of his rookie season so far, catching all six of his targets for 97 yards. Downs also has been targeted seven-plus times in two games.

The Colts’ WRs will be busy enough with Gardner Minshew at QB in the weeks ahead. Michael Pittman Jr. will command enough defensive attention to help out Downs, who is already worthy of streaming usage.

Josh Downs FAAB Bid: 12% of your available budget.

TE: Logan Thomas, Washington Commanders (13%)

When Thomas is available and healthy — which has often been an issue — you can get some occasional quality fantasy outings from him. The Washington TE caught nine of 11 targets for 77 yards and a TD on Thursday, and he was targeted eight times in Week 1.

Thomas can be streamed when you need a fill-in TE option or if there is a TE hole on the roster.

Logan Thomas FAAB Bid: 9% of your available budget.

Every Tuesday, we go through our favorite overreaction and underreaction because what fantasy football players don’t react rationally to every bit of news they hear and see?

Overreaction: None of the AFC North Teams Are That Good

There are two chief issues here. First of all, we haven’t really seen what the reigning AFC Championship contender Bengals have to offer this season, as a result of the lingering effects of Joe Burrow’s calf strain rearing its head again.

Secondly, this is the AFC North we’re talking about. Year after year, the division puts out strong, gritty teams that always somehow find their way into the playoff picture.

The Ravens have been a very solid team for the last 5 seasons, the Steelers haven’t posted a losing record in 18 years, and the Browns have one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in football that we know can still play at a high level.

I would bet big on one of these teams figuring it out. It’s most likely going to be the Bengals.

Underreaction: Breece Hall Is a Top-3 RB the Rest of the Season

This is a fun one for me. I was a big fan of Hall all offseason, even though his recovery from ACL reconstruction was bound to be complicated.

It got more complicated late in the summer when the team signed Dalvin Cook to a multi-year deal, despite giving good news on Hall’s rehab. It was bound to mean Hall would be slow out of the gate.

Despite being aware of this, we of course panicked because that’s what rational fantasy football players do. We dropped Hall into the fifth and sixth rounds of drafts, where opportunistic fantasy managers pounced on a depreciated asset that had nowhere to go but up.

Now, though, Hall is so, so, so back. As the RB3 for Week 5, he set season-highs for himself in rush share, targets per route run, and fantasy points. I have no doubt he’s going to keep putting up stellar statline after stellar statline for the rest of the year.

After all, he was the best RB in last year’s class, and it doesn’t seem like he’s slowing down anytime soon.

THE HINDSIGHT REPORT 🔮🧾

We’re officially a quarter into the NFL season! Every Tuesday, Sam Wagman will use the powers of hindsight to look back on players we thought would be good for fantasy this season but aren’t, and vice versa.

Dameon Pierce is starting to get on my last nerve, and it’s not only because the Texans’ offensive line has more injuries than old folks playing pickleball. His True Yards Per Carry sits at an atrocious 2.8, and he just hasn’t been able to get going this season, despite the Texans’ offense playing at a high level so far.

One of the significant things that we, as analysts, tried to take into account with Pierce this offseason is that last year, he was stuck behind JAGs like Rex Burkhead when it came to passing downs. This summer, we saw numerous training camp highlights of Pierce making tremendous progress as a pass-catcher and even heard the coaching staff make a note that he would play a bigger role on passing downs.

So far this season, that hasn’t come to fruition, as Pierce holds a target share of only 7.8%, which ranks 31st among RBs, and saw a season-low 3.1% this past weekend. Our nerves are starting to get frayed with Pierce and as the current RB29 in fantasy points per game, fantasy managers should no longer feel the need to insert him as an auto-start into lineups.

On a happier note (unless you’re me and didn’t draft him this offseason), Adam Thielen looks like a fantasy godsend. The type of player that you lock into your flex spot on a weekly basis, knowing he’ll get you a steady floor of points that’ll have you sleeping like a baby on Saturday nights.

I wasn’t too high on Thielen coming into the season, after having watched him last year fumble away the bag on numerous occasions in a perfect role alongside Justin Jefferson. Thielen looked slow, wasn’t creating separation like he used to, and was averaging a cringeworthy 1.15 yards per route run, which ranked 88th among wide receivers.

Fast forward to 2023, and with Thielen switching positions to play the big slot role for the Carolina Panthers, he has become rookie Bryce Young’s favorite safety blanket. He has an NFL-high 171 slot snaps and has been extremely productive as the WR11 through five games.

Thielen looks like he’s going to continue to win you weeks despite being a 13th-round pick in most drafts, while a guy like Pierce is going to have you tossing and turning each weekend despite having spent a fourth or fifth-round pick to draft him.

Each Tuesday, Sam Wagman will take a peek at the week ahead’s betting spread and total lines on our partner FanDuel to determine which lines you should grab ahead of time.

Giants +14 @ Buffalo Bills (-110)

It’s the second week in a row that I’m backing the Giants! Something must be wrong with me.

The Giants arguably should have covered +13 in Miami this past weekend, except they just gave up down the stretch. Here’s one thing I know: every week that goes by, things get closer (however slowly) to getting figured out.

With Saquon Barkley and Andrew Thomas both another week healthier and presumably almost ready to return, grabbing a line that spots them two full touchdowns seems like a great idea against a Bills team that has lost their starting:

• Two cornerbacks

• Two linebackers

• Two defensive ends

We obviously have to take Daniel Jones’ neck injury into consideration here, but reports have said he should be alright to play and no determination has yet been made on his status.

Titans/Ravens Under 40.5 (-115)

A London game would not be complete without someone calling for an under, so that’s exactly what I’m doing here, since both London games have gone under this season.

The Ravens have been under machines with Lamar Jackson as the starter, as the under has gone 35-22 since 2020 in Ravens games. Also of note here: The Ravens have quietly not allowed more than 24 points in any game this season and are progressively getting healthier across their defense.

On the Titans’ side, I’m not sure you need to be convinced on an under. Ryan Tannehill has not been particularly good passing the football this season and Derrick Henry has been underwhelming at best, bad at worst, with under a 50% snap share in two games already, the first time that’s happened since 2019.

Raiders -2.5 vs. New England Patriots (-110)

Fading the Patriots? Why would I ever do that?

The above sentence was most likely uttered by someone who didn’t want to win money, but you absolutely should fade the Patriots. They’ve been outscored 72-3 in their past two games by the Saints and Cowboys, and neither team really had to use their offense.

As noted above, Mac Jones has now been benched in back-to-back games, and while Bill Belichick continues to insist that he is the starter, don’t be surprised if Bailey Zappe makes yet another appearance. This Patriots’ team is a trainwreck that can’t get anything going on offense or defense.

Josh McDaniels should be able to best his former boss in this game. Don’t forget, Belichick is mortal when facing his former assistants, he’s gone 18-19 vs. them in his career.

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