It's important to reevaluate periodically over the course of the fantasy football campaign... but it can be a bit maddening. Let us do some of that legwork and soul searching for you: here's a progress report on the fantasy landscape in the AFC East.
Buffalo Bills
Total Offense: 299.5/game (21st)
Passing Yards: 180.5/game (23rd)
Rushing Yards: 119.0/game (18th)
Offensive TDs: 8 (t-3rd)
Prediction: Passing yardage will increase, scoring regresses slightly
Not a ton to report here; Josh Allen remains Quite Good, and the Bills have outscored their opponents 62-21 over their last 91 minutes of elapsed game time. Buffalo and Miami stymied each other’s passing games last week, so the Bills simply pivoted to efficiency maven James Cook. Cook’s three-touchdown day was no doubt unnerving to Josh Allen drafters, and for them this is probably at least a little bit of a dose of reality; Allen was never going to beat Cook 15 to 2 in rushing TDs again. But only one of Cook’s three scores came from inside the five-yard line last Thursday, and amazingly only two of his seven career rushing touchdowns have come from inside the opponent’s 20. Allen should still wind up leading this team in rushing scores, but probably not by a ton.
We don’t know much about the passing game yet! Only two receivers have topped 50 yards receiving in a game so far, and the wide receivers have only caught two touchdowns total. But laying claims to one of each of those is Khalil Shakir, which is enough for him to hold the ‘de facto #1 receiver’ title… for now. Shakir has been hyper efficient, catching all eight of his targets so far… but eight targets in two games projects out to a measly 68.5 for the year. Not #1 receiver type usage. Not even really #3 receiver usage. Rookie Keon Coleman’s week 2 goose egg was no doubt frustrating for his owners, but in a game that the Bills led by 2+ scores for the final 36 minutes the fact that Coleman wound up playing 91% of the snaps (Mack Hollins 71%, Shakir 69%) strikes me as a concerted effort to get the rookie run blocking reps; I take that as a positive sign for his outlook going forward. But credit where it’s due: At the 1/8th mark in our 'Shakir v Coleman' opinion face-off it is Ian Allan by a lot. Curtis Samuel has been a ghost through two games, likely owing to his late August case of turf toe. Either way, things are getting away from him here in a hurry. Mack Hollins has out-snapped Shakir in both games so far. Go figure.
It isn’t so much that Dalton Kincaid’s receptions dried up after the Bills went up big on the Dolphins concerns me… as it is that he was off the field altogether (42% snaps week 2; 84% week 1), along with any other Buffalo tight end. Between that and the fact that three of Kincaid’s five targets thus far have been designed screens and this team’s target share pecking order definitely has a ways to go. A week 3 date with the Jags and their 30th-ranked pass defense should deliver much-needed clarity.
Miami Dolphins
Total Offense: 375.5/game (8th)
Passing Yards: 265.5/game (1st)
Rushing Yards: 110.0/game (20th)
Offensive TDs: 3 (t-19th)
Prediction: Passing numbers drop slightly, rushing yardage improves
This one’s going to be a devil to predict, for obvious reasons. Given Tagovailoa’s completely uncertain availability (for what it’s worth, I think he’ll be out for more than the minimum four games), I’m going to approach this as though Skylar Thompson is the guy for the foreseeable future. Not much is known about Thompson, and probably even less is expected. But after spending last year as the #3 quarterback the Dolphins let Mike White depart in the off-season, elevating Thompson to the backup job. A cost-cutting maneuver to be sure, but Thompson has 2+ years in the Mike McDaniel ecosystem now and was really far better as a pinch hitter against the Bills in the 2022 wild card round than his box score suggests (18-of-45, 1 TD 2 INT); he was let down by no fewer than four ‘hit them in the hands’ drops that day. Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle owners should certainly be nervous, but I definitely don’t see their numbers plummeting - it’s just not in McDaniel’s DNA. Thompson will need to throw for 225-250 yards a game or McDaniel will find somebody who can.
The other big development in Miami has been the volume of one De’Von Achane, who has amazingly managed to process 46 of the Miami backfield’s first 67 touches (not including Alec Ingold’s usage; sorry Alec) and leads all running backs in both receptions and receiving yards thus far. While that 433-touch pace will most assuredly not hold, Achane's thoroughly pedestrian 3.75 yards per carry has definitely been a function of facing two solid run defenses so far in Buffalo and Jacksonville. Only two of Achane’s 32 rush attempts have gone for 15+ yards, a 6.3% explosive run rate that is exactly half of his 12.6% rate last year – and yet he is still the RB4 so far by .5 PPR scoring. The big plays will come, and Achane is staring at a top-5 RB finish in the face if his body can take the increase in work. As many fantasy players turn their focus to Jaylen Wright as the next big thing in the Miami offense, Raheem Mostert stands out as a screaming ‘buy low’ here. The Dolphins figure to go to ground heavily in the weeks ahead, and McDaniel certainly trusts the veteran plenty.
Jonnu Smith was a fun guy to speculate about in the offseason, and after a clunker of a Dolphin debut week 1 he rebounded sharply with a six-catch, 53-yard showing as the Dolphins tried to dink and dunk their way back into last week’s game. Encouraging, and Smith’s role could absolutely stabilize as McDaniel tinkers with ways to get the ball out of his new quarterback’s hands quickly. But until he’s playing north of 50% of the snaps (he’s currently down around 35% for the season) and we have some idea of what we have on our hands with Thompson, best to steer clear – even with the juicy week 3 matchup.
New England Patriots
Total Offense: 246.3/game (30th)
Passing Yards: 102/game (t-31st)
Rushing Yards: 144.3/game (9th)
Offensive TDs: 3 (t-30th/game)
Prediction: Passing yardage simply has to recover, but rushing yardage regresses
It’s hard to overstate how inept passing offenses have been leaguewide, and it has not spared the league’s lesser units: if the season were to end today, the bottom six passing offenses of 2024 to date would account for six of the seven worst in the last 13 NFL seasons. Yeesh. So understanding that it’s a special brand of stink that allows any NFL team to throw for less than 150 yards a game over a full season and that Jacoby Brissett threw for 237 a game with this same offensive coordinator just two years ago, we do have to assume the wide receivers won’t all remain on milk cartons much longer.
Of course, figuring out exactly who answers the call here is… tricky. Second year man DeMario Douglas’s 7 catches for 69 yards against the Jets on Thursday night qualified as nothing short of a revelation; no other New England wideout had topped 24 yards their first two times out. His snaps also jumped from 58% through two games to 83%; we’ll call him the top guy for now. Free agency addition K.J. Osborn has played starter’s snaps thus far, but eight targets (11.6% target share) for four receptions suggest that this guy’s just a guy. Probably the player to keep an eye on here is rookie second round pick Ja’Lynn Polk, whose been on the field nearly as much as these two through three games. He’s operating as their primary outside receiver (83% of his snaps lined up outside), and considering that Brissett sits at 25th in the league in aDOT (average depth of target) so far then as the Patriots start to (theoretically?) push the ball down the field in the weeks to come that should disproportionately benefit Polk... theoretically. But if one of these guys doesn’t do something soon you can probably plan on grabbing Kendrick Bourne as soon as we hear his practice window’s been opened.
After two consecutive top-10 outings to open the season, Rhamondre Stevenson’s disappearing act against the Jets (0.3 fantasy points) definitely hurt. Whatever, goose eggs happen, especially against this Jets defense. What was mortifying was seeing his snap rate crater from a robust 75% through two games to 46% against the Jets. Probably the Patriots will do whatever they can to stay out of game scripts like the one the Jets put them in this week… but so does every team, and the Patriots have some rough matchups coming up, starting with a trip to San Francisco to play a freshly ticked off 49ers team. You can’t exactly justify sitting Stevenson, but you’re definitely closing your eyes and crossing your fingers here… which I fear may quickly become a theme. On the plus side Stevenson is running routes on 55% of the Patriots’ dropbacks, the eight-highest rate among qualifying RBs; the receptions should increase. But still, I’d try to flip him to the Joe Mixon owner that can’t go without for even a week or two if I could. Just a thought.
Hunter Henry most certainly snookered some fantasy players into streaming him this week… ouch. Henry will have a couple more random spike days like he had against the Seahawks, but as an okay-not-great talent he’s just not ever going to be a safe stream in a passing game this anemic. That is, unless Drake Maye comes on and gets straight to work setting the world on fire.
New York Jets
Total Offense: 310.3 (17th)
Passing Yards: 209.7 (14th)
Rushing Yards: 100.7 (23rd)
Offensive TDs: 9 (t-5th/game)
Prediction: What you see is what you’ll get
Week 3 was the first game where the Jets were able to impose what I gotta think is their platonic ideal game flow on a team: get up by two scores early, then let the defense pin its ears back and asphyxiate the other offense from there. The Jets defense only let the Patriots possess the football for a measly 19:56 on Thursday night, even with Breece Hall struggling to get anything going on the ground. And I have to admit, Aaron Rodgers was the best we’ve seen him since 2021, calmly, methodically walking through the Patriots defense for 281 yards and a couple touchdowns on 27-of-35 passing. And the Jets should be able to do something similar when they get a rookie QB enduring an old school trial by fire in Bo Nix and the Broncos next week. Bully for Jets fans, as they should be sitting at 3-1 in eight days’ time… knock on wood.
But let’s not put too much perfume on the pig here: they beat up on a Patriots team that were widely projected to win no more than four games, and before that things were plenty dicey. The Niners handling them in the season opener was no big surprise, but the Titans took them to the last play in week 2, and that was with Will Levis doing what are quickly becoming Will Levis things to make their lives easier – and the defense still gave up 300 yards. This was more of a get right game than the Jets want to admit. After Denver, things get real in a hurry: their opponents weeks 5-9 are currently a combined 9-2, and both those losses belong to the Patriots they’ll be facing again in week 8.
They'll also face three run defenses currently sitting in the top eight in the league during that stretch; hopefully Breece Hall gets his licks in now against a bottom-10 Broncos’ front, because more tough sledding awaits. On top of that, he’s got a young buck forcing his way on to the field behind him in the 20-year old Badger, Braelon Allen. But no matter, as not even stout defenses (3.7ypc) nor moderated workloads (15.3 carries per game) have stopped Hall from totaling at least 83 yards and a touchdown every time out; he’s simply Quite Good, you see. With Christian McCaffrey safely out of the way, Hall’s got as clear a path as any to an RB1 finish in PPR formats… as long as this Allen kid stays in his lane.
Less rosy of a start has befallen Garrett Wilson, who needed a short third quarter touchdown on Thursday to avert a truly disastrous start to the season outside the top 40 WRs. Adding insult to injury has been the fact that Allen Lazard, who spent at least a portion of the summer on the outside looking in at a roster spot, is currently leading the team in receiving yards and touchdowns. And what we suspected was the culprit here was confirmed by none other than Rodgers himself after the Patriots game; with no other real threat to worry about more than 10 yards downfield defenses have keyed on erasing Garrett Wilson with a barrage of Cover 2 and bracket coverage. But the target share remains elite (27.7%, 10th in the NFL), and help is coming in the form of Mike Williams who ramped up to 65% of the offensive snaps in their contested week 2 matchup with Tennessee before game script allowed him to take off the last quarter-plus of this last game. A healthy Williams can help keep defenses honest, and if Tyler Conklin can chip in with some chunk play days like he did this week (his 93 yards against the Pats were a new career-best) then those two can definitely draw some fire away, allowing Wilson convert on his ample looks at a higher clip. But Wilson’s probably in store for another long day at the office next week; Denver’s Patrick Surtain II comes to town in Week 4 to extend Wilson and his owners’ frustration for one more game.
