Week 2 fantasy winners and losers

Wow. The early games have been an absolute bloodbath, with multiple big names and plenty of offensive starters going down with injuries. A list of some of the bigger names includes, Davante Adams, Christian McCaffrey, Saquon Barkley, Raheem Mostert, Jimmy Garoppolo, Sterling Shepard, Parris Campbell, Courtland Sutton, Breshad Perriman, along with many others. So far, the only likely season ending injury is Barkley, which is awful enough for us fantasy players.

We will trudge on though and there have been plenty of fantasy points to go around today. We’ll take a look at some of the best and worst performances for Week 2

SNF

The good news

* Russell Wilson is cooking, has cooked, and will cook some more. Through two games he’s thrown for 610 yards and nine touchdowns. He put up five touchdown passes to five separate receivers against a great Patriots secondary tonight. The fact that the Seahawks have waited over eight years to give him the reins to this offense is criminal.

* Cam Newton looked great in Seattle, as he threw for 397 yards, one touchdown, and one interception, while rushing 11 times for 47 yards and two more touchdowns. After barely throwing the ball in Miami, there was some concern, but he looked solid as a passer throughout. Then, add in those rushing touchdowns and well, you’ve got Cam Newton. He has four rushing TDs on the season. He’s on pace for 32 rushing touchdowns.

* Julian Edelman caught eight passes for 179 yards, which is a record number of yards for the 34-year old veteran. He was awesome, but the team still could use another go-to receiver or tight end to keep his old bones from getting smashed. We’ll see how it plays out, but I could see the Patriots looking to trade for a wide receiver at some point this season.

The not so good news

* Sony Michel has no value at this point. He managed a touchdown in Week 1, but Newton is the goal line back more often than not. Michel gets no targets and if he’s not scoring touchdowns he is useless for fantasy. Against Seattle he ran seven times for 19 yards while Rex Burkhead was the main back due to catch up mode with James White out.

Late Games

The good News

* The hype for Kyler Murray in his second year was not overdone. His rushing numbers coupled with even average passing numbers have been big for his fantasy stats through two games. This weekend he completed 26-of-38 passes for 286 yards one touchdown, and an interception, adding eight rushing attempts for 67 yards and two touchdowns. His uptick in rushing from last season keeps him in the Top 5 quarterbacks moving forward without a question. He gets the Lions next week.

* Austin Ekeler didn’t find the end zone, so he didn’t have a huge fantasy day, but he did rush 16 times for 93 yards and caught 4-of-4 targets for 55 yards. That’s an improvement from last week due to the receptions, which is one of the big reasons you drafted Ekeler. Josh Kelley actually had more rushing attempts, as the Chargers had a lead late against the Chiefs. Kelley ended up with 23 attempts for 64 yards and two receptions for 49 more yards. Kelley is the short-yardage and clock-killing back while Ekeler is the in-space back. Ekeler is still the No. 1 back, but it’s very much a committee. The good news is that Ekeler is really good at football.

* Terry McLaurin caught 7-of-10 targets for 125 yards and a touchdown against the Cardinals. This is the Scary Terry we want to see and the targets as well. He’s without a doubt their best receiver and needs double-digit targets every week, because these are the kinds of numbers you’re going to see from him.

The not so good news

* After putting up a big Week 1 against the Chiefs, Will Fuller was completely shut down by the Ravens as he went targetless. Fuller played most of the game, but did deal with a hamstring issue during the game. Add to that, the Ravens corners are quite good. Fuller isn’t DeAndre Hopkins, but if he can stay on the field, he will be useful to your teams in fantasy, just not this week.

* Mark Andrews caught 1-of-3 targets for 20 yards. Unfortunately, this is something that can happen to Andrews in a blowout that he wasn’t part of creating. Lamar Jackson spread the ball around a lot and only had 24 attempts. With nine players catching at least one pass each, it just wasn’t in the cards for Andrews this week.

Early games

The good News

* The reports of Aaron Jones demise have been greatly exaggerated. The guy is awesome. Why the Packers wasted an early pick on A.J. Dillon and a quarterback are beyond bewildering. But, that’s for another discussion. Jones is who we’re giving some love to today after rushing 18 times for 168 yards and two touchdowns and catching 4-of-8 targets for 68 more yards and another touchdown. The efficiency and blow up games are still there.

* How did the Cowboys win that game? Goodness. Dan Quinn’s seat is smoking right now. There were a lot of fantasy points though and Dak Prescott got a few boatloads full, as he threw for 450 yards and one touchdowns, while he added three more touchdowns on the ground. It’s really a dream fantasy line since rushing TDs usually give us six fantasy points instead of four for a passing touchdown.

* Has the torch been passed? If it hasn’t, Calvin Ridley has snatched it from Julio Jones’ grasp at least for a couple games. Ridley’s now had two games of over 100 yards and two touchdowns to start the season. This week against the Cowboys he caught 7-of-12 passes for 109 yards and two touchdowns and Julio Jones, well, he did not. You’ll see Jones further down in this post.

* James Conner gets a game ball or two after rising from the fantasy football grave to rush 16 times for 106 yards and a touchdown, adding two receptions for 15 yards. After it looked like he was outplayed by Benny Snell while also suffering an ankle injury in Week 1, Conner comes back with a strong game against a good Denver defense. He’ll hold onto his job.

* Josh Allen has now accounted for seven touchdowns and 804 yards through two games. His 417 yards passing for four touchdowns is by far his best passing game so far in his career. Allen is playing great and this week he must feel giddy that he has Stefon Diggs in the fold, who caught eight of 13 targets for 153 yards and a touchdown. The Bills are turning Allen loose this year and so far so good.

* Leonard Fournette rushed just 12 times, but put up 103 yards and two touchdowns on the ground while Ronald Jones got the start, but ended up with seven rushing attempts for 23 yards and a touchdown. Fournette also had four receptions on five targets, which is a great sign for his fantasy upside. They’ll likely continue in some sort of a committee, but Fournette has proven he’s the guy to roster in fantasy.

* Diontae Johnson again led the Steelers in targets, but this week he also led in receptions, yards and touchdowns. He caught 8-of-13 targets for 92 yards and one touchdown while JuJu Smith-Schuster caught 7-of-8 for 48 yards. At this point, the No. 1 and 2 Steelers receivers look to be somewhat interchangeable with Johnson in the lead.

* Darrell Henderson ran the ball 12 times for 81 yards and a touchdown and caught 2-of-3 passes for 40 more yards. This is the kind of game many draftniks foresaw with Henderson in L.A., but it’s been a tough road to touches for the second-year back. But, rookie Cam Akers left this game with an injury and Henderson split work with Malcolm Brown. Brown ended up with 11 carries for 47 yards. We’ll need to see how bad Akers’ injury is, but Henderson made his claim to more touches today.

The not so good news

* Kirk Cousins completed 11-of-26 passes for 113 yards, no touchdowns and three interceptions against the Colts. He had negative fantasy points and took a safety. That’s beyond awful. Yes, he’s missing Stefon Diggs, but he was pathetic. He’ll probably still have some good fantasy games, but these kind of games are going to kill your fantasy week.

* Derrick Henry was set up for another big game against the Jaguars, but it didn’t come to fruition, as he rushed 25 times for 84 yards and no touchdowns. That now gives him 56 rushing attempts for 200 yards (3.57 ypc) and no touchdowns. As long as he’s healthy, his huge workload is going to pay off, but so far no good.

* Carson Wentz had better protection this week but didn’t play much better, as he completed 26-of-43 passes for 242 yards, zero touchdowns and two interceptions. He managed to get a QB sneak for a touchdown, but overall it was an awful game with two end zone interceptions. We’ve seen him put up great fantasy numbers, but he’ll need to get back on track before trusting him again.

* Todd Gurley got plenty of rushing attempts with the Falcons leading for the whole game, but ended up gaining just 61 yards on 21 attempts, while seeing zero targets. The rushing workload was good enough to keep him in your starting lineup moving forward, but this was a painful fantasy performance.

* Davante Adams went off in Week 1, but Week 2 was a different story, as he caught his three targets for 36 yards. He was in and out of the game with injuries and we can put this down game on his injuries more than anything else. It looks like he’s dealing with ankle and hamstring injuries. Hopefully he gets a full practice in this week before they face the Saints.

* Matt Ryan threw for four touchdowns and the Falcons scored 39 points, but Julio Jones caught 2-of-4 passes for 24 yards. That’s not going to get it done. He dropped a clear touchdown pass to add insult to injury. And maybe injury had something to do with his play, as he was hurting in practice last week. At this point we probably need to start paying a bit more attention to his injuries instead of just automatically believing he’ll be fine.

* Allen Robinson’s team got the win, but playing with Mitch Trubisky can’t be fun. Robinson caught 3-of-9 targets for 33 yards against the Giants. The Bears are 2-0 amazingly and will keep chugging along with Trubisky, which might be Robinson’s best chance for fantasy points unfortunately.