Fantasy football is a game based on statistics, but statistics without context will tell lies. Great fantasy analysis should incorporate a blend of statistical and film analysis, which will be the goal of this column every week.
I will watch the condensed version of every game this season and highlight a handful of the most important developments from my game reviews each week for fantasy managers to consider moving forward.
Tyrone Tracy
The Week 6 playing status of Devin Singletary (groin) will probably not be known for a few more days, so it is a mystery as of now if Tracy will play as much as he did in Week 5. One thing is certain if Singletary misses another game — he will not lose many snaps to Eric Gray again anytime soon.
Tracy fell to the late fifth round of April's draft for two reasons: 1) he did not settle on running back until late in his college career, and 2) he will turn 25 years old around Thanksgiving. While his impatience and inexperience as a running back was apparent on a few occasions against the Seahawks, he brought the same jolt to New York's offense that Tony Pollard — my predraft comp for Tracy - routinely did during his time with the Cowboys.
In the NFL, coaches ask their running backs to do a few things well as runners: anticipate and/or see the hole, explode through it, make the first defender miss, and fall forward. Let's take a look at how he fared in a few of those areas in Week 5 courtesy of the Fantasy Points Data Suite:
Explosive run rate (percentage of carries to go for 15 or more yards): 11.1% (tied for 11th in Week 5)
Explosive rush yardage: 52 (fourth)
Missed Tackles Forced: 4 (tied for eighth)
Yards After Contact: 56 (tied for fourth)
Yards After Contact/Attempt: 3.11 (eighth)
Tracy provides a great example of his explosiveness and anticipation on this second-quarter run. Perhaps the best part of the play was his awareness to switch the ball from his inside (right) hand to his outside (left) hand as he shifted gears about 10 yards into his run. It is a minor detail to casual observers, but it is uncommon to see an inexperienced back have the presence of mind to do that.
He displayed impressive contact balance to open the second half and more explosiveness later in the third quarter. He showed off some power on this fourth-quarter carry as well. Perhaps the most impressive part of his 129-yard rushing day was that none of his 18 carries lost yardage.
The Giants' brass — most notably coach Brian Daboll and general Joe Schoen — may be too loyal to Singletary from their time together in Buffalo to consider cutting back his workload. However, Daboll and Schoen have to ask themselves if they can afford to go back to Singletary as the featured back after Tracy did in his first NFL start what the veteran has only done once in 82 career games: rush for at least 125 yards.
Singletary is unlikely to lose his gig at any point this season because he is such a steady and reliable back, but Tracy likely guaranteed himself at least 30-35% of the backfield work for the foreseeable future with his Week 5 effort. At worst, the Giants may have found their lead back for 2025 and beyond.
Chase Brown
Many questions can be asked about Cincinnati's 1-4 start, including why head coach Zac Taylor needed a month to conclude that Brown should handle the ball more often than Zack Moss. The decision to do so was likely based on Brown's production in Week 4 (15 carries for 80 yards and two touchdowns; two catches for 12 yards) against a weak Carolina Panthers' run defense, but perhaps there was something more:
Chase Brown Week 4 explosive run rate: 6.7%
Zack Moss Week 4 explosive run rate: 0%
Chase Brown Week 4 stuff rate: 20%
Zack Moss Week 4 stuff rate: 60%
Chase Brown Week 4 missed tackles forced: 4
Zack Moss Week 4 missed tackles forced: 2
Chase Brown Week 4 yards after contact: 59
Zack Moss Week 4 yards after contact: 22
Week 5 offered more of the same:
Chase Brown Week 5 explosive run rate: 8.3%
Zack Moss Week 5 explosive run rate: 0%
Chase Brown Week 5 stuff rate: 50%
Zack Moss Week 5 stuff rate: 67%
Chase Brown Week 5 missed tackles forced: 4
Zack Moss Week 5 missed tackles forced: 1
Chase Brown Week 5 yards after contact: 32
Zack Moss Week 5 yards after contact: 13
Interestingly, Moss averaged more yards before contact in each game but averaged a full yard less per carry in both outings.
For whatever reason, Brown has been viewed as a committee back since he was a fifth-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. He was certainly more than that in his final season at Illinois, totaling 355 touches (27 catches). He can handle a heavy workload. Brown boasted an explosive run rate of nearly 7% in his final season with the Fighting Illini. He showed off that explosiveness in Week 14 last season, turning a screen pass into a 54-yard score.
While Brown may be more geared to running outside, and Moss may be a slightly better runner in between the tackles — the last part of that statement runs counter to the metrics above — Brown showed us several examples of why he should be the lead back for the Bengals in Week 5. He displayed the same traits mentioned with Tracy earlier that coaches love to see from their running backs, especially on this 16-yard toss to the left and 12-yard burst up the middle against the Ravens.
It remains to be seen how much of Brown's increased usage in Week 5 was the result of Moss suffering an ankle injury, but we could be witnessing a changing of the guard — or at least more of a consistent push — to make sure Brown is the lead back in Cincinnati. With the defense playing as poorly as it has, the Bengals need as many explosive playmakers on offense on the field as often as possible.
Josh Downs
29%, 33%, 27%.
These percentages are Downs' target shares since he made his season debut in Week 3, coming off a high-ankle sprain. He has more targets in the last three games (26-22) than teammate Michael Pittman Jr., who just received a three-year contract extension worth $68 million in the offseason. The last statement is not meant as a slight to Pittman, but it illustrates how much Downs means to the offense.
Especially over the last 10 or so seasons, the slot receiver has become a glamorous position in the league because NFL play-callers either put their best receiver in that spot or the receiver they trust the most to create quick separation. Since Pittman has proven he can win consistently on the perimeter, the Colts have the luxury of allowing Downs to create headaches inside. To that end, Downs has run almost 90% of his routes out of the slot since his return.
Week 5 provided several examples of what happens when defenses try to match up a safety - or even a linebacker - on a player like Downs. The second-year wideout wore out Jacksonville on the first drive of the game, targeting the North Carolina product three times on their first six drop-backs. He easily beat linebacker Devin Lloyd on an option route on the first offensive snap, made safety Darnell Savage look slow on a deep over route two plays later, and left linebacker Ventrell Miller flat-footed five plays after that. Later in the quarter, he made a brilliant one-handed catch after lining up in the backfield.
Perhaps that last play that says more than anything about Downs' standing on the team. Play-callers do not make a habit of drawing up first-read targets for complementary receivers. To that end, Downs ranks seventh in the league in first-read targets at 35.7%, just ahead of Diontae Johnson (35.3) and Amon-Ra St. Brown (35.2). Downs' fast start is not a fluke; he is seeing alpha usage because the Colts believe he is one.
Although Downs' 17.5% Separation Win Rate out of the slot so far is a bit low for someone of his talents, some of that is the product of his 6.3% score in Week 3 dragging down his number a bit, which is to be expected for a player in his first game coming off a high-ankle sprain. His Separation Win Rate is 21.3% over the last two weeks, which is nearly twice as high as Jayden Reed's mark (10.2) over that same span.
The real test of Downs' newfound alpha usage will be when Anthony Richardson returns from his hip injury. Richardson needs a receiver like Downs who can uncover quickly and give him easy completions, but the young quarterback needs to build enough trust with head coach Shane Steichen to earn the right to throw the ball more often, which will be a challenge. (Indianapolis has averaged 39 drop-backs over the last two games — mainly with Joe Flacco under center — compared to Richardson’s 27.7 drop-backs from Weeks 1-3.)
Tucker Kraft
No matter how scientific we try to get with football, the game will always present more questions than we can confidently answer. At least four questions have emerged regarding the Green Bay passing game over the last two weeks: is Kraft becoming a stud tight end? Are his consecutive overall TE1 finishes a product of Christian Watson getting hurt? Or Luke Musgrave trying to play through an injury? Or both?
While his overall production in Weeks 4-5 is more than anyone could have realistically hoped for, performing at a high level should not be overly surprising for Kraft’s detractors considering how well he performed in Musgrave's absence late last season. From Weeks 14-17, Kraft and David Njoku were the only two tight ends to score double-digit fantasy points in each game. He was a viable fantasy starter in five of the six weeks that Musgrave missed.
Fantasy managers were likely (and rightfully) thrown off his scent in Weeks 1-3 when he failed to earn more than three targets in any game while running only 51% of the routes, including a 10-9 edge over Musgrave in Week 3. However, Kraft owned a commanding 47-14 edge over Musgrave in routes run in Week 4, which was also the game Watson left after nine snaps due to his high-ankle sprain.
The most likely answer to the first question posed earlier is that Kraft is actually #goodatfootball. While this crossing route early in the third quarter was nothing special, there are maybe only a handful of tight ends in the league who possess the speed and strength to turn that play into a 66-yard touchdown. The beauty of his second TD catch was that it was a screen designed for him. Especially in today's NFL, coaches rarely draw up plays to feature a tight end in the red zone. That play says a lot about how Green Bay feels about Kraft.
NFL teams tend to lean toward higher-drafted players for many reasons. However, there comes a point when a lower-drafted player (Kraft, in this case) earns enough respect that draft status no longer matters — especially when the higher-drafted player(s) keep getting hurt.
Thankfully, fantasy managers do not have to worry about the coaching staff cutting Kraft's snaps quite yet. Watson's injury should keep him sidelined for at least two more weeks, while Musgrave's injury history — dating back to his college days — suggests he should remain in a part-time role.
In a year where finding tight-end production has been such a struggle, Kraft has already displayed elite upside. He may not be the overall weekly TE1 again this season, but there is a reasonable chance he will remain in the TE1 conversation for the rest of the season, even after Watson returns.
