Watching trends in fantasy football is a key way to measure how a player is doing and to try and predict future success - or lack thereof. This week I present to you a pair of players trending up and a pair of players trending down and attempt to extrapolate which direction to expect them to go in the future. For our purposes, a trend is a player that has gone up or down three consecutive weeks.
Trending Up
Kenyan Drake (RB-ARI) – Wk 4 @ CAR, 3.5; Wk 5 @ NYJ, 12.7; Wk 6 @ DAL, 28.4. Drake currently finds himself in a classic trending up situation where nearly all of his stats are trending in the correct direction. His carries, yardage, touchdowns, and fantasy points are all trending up. He put on a show on Monday night, running all over the busted Dallas defense, capping it off with a 69-yard rushing TD at the end of the game. Drake did what he is supposed to do against bad teams in the last two weeks and wound up as the RB2 just last week. He’s averaging 5.9 yards per carry in the last 2 games and has 3 total touchdowns as his team has put up at least 30 each week. Now Drake has some more nice matchups coming up. He’ll play 2 of his next 4 games against Seattle, who give up double digits to anyone with a respectable running game. He also has a game against Miami coming off a bye which should be a fine matchup as well. With the Cardinals offense past their early season jitters and back to their winning ways, I expect Drake to be a large part of the offense going forward and think his upward trend is a good indicator of what’s to come.
Darren Fells (TE-HOU) – Wk 4 vs MIN, 3.1; Wk 5 vs JAX, 12.7; Wk 6 @ TEN, 17.5. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. I’m not looking for TE magic here, just a one-eyed man…if you’ll let me stretch this metaphor. Fells is the TE5 when measuring across the last 3 games of all TEs. If you are not currently in possession of George Kittle or Travis Kelce, then it’s likely that you’re a blind resident of the TE wasteland. Fells is only owned in 32% of Fleaflicker leagues, so he’s been trending in the right direction if you’re streaming TEs. In the two games since Bill O’Brien was fired, the Texans have scored 66 points. They only had 80 points in the previous 4 games, so clearly they have identified at least part of what was broken on their offense. Fells has increased his yardage total 3 weeks in a row, and scored each of the last two weeks. He had 7 targets last week, good for third on the team. Fells has a mixed bag of matchups coming up, which means he will continue to just be a good streaming option and probably not a permanent fixture on your team. Regardless, it’s hard to find your way around the TE wasteland, best to at least go with someone who has an eye for the end zone.
Trending Down
Antonio Gibson (RB-WAS) – Wk 4 vs BAL, 20.8; Wk 5 vs LAR, 7.6; Wk 6 @ NYG, 7.5. Gibson was trending up and peaked in Week 4 with a rather good performance of 128 yards from scrimmage and 1 TD. Since then, however, his yards per carry has dropped to below 3.3 in each game. He’s seeing fewer carries and is also less effective in the passing game. Credit for his reduced workload goes to J.D. McKissic, the #2 RB in Washington. He has technically started half the games this season, and is definitely receiving a lot more attention in the passing game when compared to Gibson. The Washington offense is in QB limbo and there’s barely enough production on that team to support one fantasy WR, let alone a RB on a committee. The nature of this split has actually led to McKissic getting a larger percentage of the snaps than Gibson over the last couple of weeks. It was a nice idea, but the rookie is just not producing enough to warrant starting every week. Another week or two of this, and I expect to find him on Dave’s cutlist.
Juju Smith-Schuster (WR-PIT) – Wk 3 vs HOU, 14.3; Wk 5 vs PHI, 4.8; Wk 6 vs CLE, 1.6. On the season, Juju has not broken 70 yards and since the Steelers impromptu bye week, he is averaging a dismal 5.7 yards per reception. With the emergence of Chase Claypool and Diontae Johnson back to full health, it looks like Smith-Schuster is relegated to 3rd or 4th on the target list. The Steelers are playing well, a 5-0 start is the best they’ve had since the steel curtain of the late 70’s. There’s no need to fix what isn’t broken, so I don’t see a bounce back in store for Juju any time soon. He is still rosterable because he will have a role on this high powered offense if there are any injuries ahead of him.
(dis)Honorable Mention - Joshua Kelley (RB-LAC) – While not officially trending down by our standards, Kelley has been just utterly useless when it comes to fantasy. Justin Jackson has assumed the role of the injured Austin Ekeler, who will be back “later than sooner” according to coach Lynn.
