2021 Dynasty/Fantasy Game Analysis Week 2: Buccaneers 48, Falcons 25 (By Ross Jacobs)
Oh boy do I have a good one for you today. This game was eye-opening to watch for a number of reasons. So much to unpack so let's get to it.
The first thing you might notice is the score. Buccaneers are just rolling right along ready to defend their title...or maybe not.
I watched this game back twice just to make sure I didn't miss anything, and I have to say that the Falcons arguably outplayed the Bucs considering their talent levels. They had a few unlucky breaks early and got in a hole but managed to claw their way back into the game.
Atlanta got the ball back early in the 4th quarter trailing only 28-25 and TB only had 28 because of a lucky interception earlier in the game. The Falcons got backed up on their own 4 after a TB punt took a nice bounce and after the Falcons got stopped they punted it away but it was a crappy punt and Tampa got the ball near the 50. Brady promptly punched in the score and the Bucs were back on top by 10.
There was still time for Atlanta to try and get it back, but Ryan got two drives back to back where a pass got tipped right to a defender for easy pick 6's. And just like that the game was over.
This was NOT a Buccaneers beatdown of a hapless Falcons team. Not even close. The Falcons showed a level of grit and tenacity I haven't seen from the Bucs yet. Tampa seems to have a little of the arrogance the Rams are showing right now. We've got Tom Brady (or Stafford) and we're invincible. I'm not sure which of those teams is more overrated right now.
Don't get me wrong, Tampa is still a very good team. Their defense isn't nearly as menacing as last year though, but the offense is better so it offsets a little. They will be in the mix for #1 seed in the NFC. Right this second though my money would be elsewhere (likely in Arizona).
The Falcons are starting to right their ship. They looked atrocious against the Eagles, but this was a whole different squad or so it appeared. The defense isn't great and seems particularly vulnerable over the middle, but they were flying around aggressively, coming after Brady, hitting hard, and just generally looked much better than last week. The offense is starting to get it's feet under it too, and we'll talk about that more in a minute. After what I saw here I'm wondering if this team might not be closer to 6 or 7 wins than the 2-3-4 we assumed after last week. I want to see another game to be sure of the trends.
Fantasy Notes
--There are a few big-ticket items to cover, but you know I have to start with longtime FFM favorite Cordarrelle Patterson (7-11-1, 5-58-1/7). I am so happy for C-Patt that he's finally getting his long overdue moment in the spotlight. I just wish this had happened years ago. Thank all those genius offensive coordinators who couldn't figure out how to throw him a damn screen pass. Anyways, this was exactly what we were hoping for (and what I honestly did not think would happen). Credit to Arthur Smith, he knows Patterson is his best weapon and he's using him, not just at RB but also at WR and Patterson is delivering.
Don't be scared off by the low ypc here. Patterson was running better than Mike Davis (9-38-0, 7-25-0/7) the entire game. He just had a couple of late carries where Tampa blew up the line and hit him for big losses, and Davis had the opposite thing happen. He was getting stuffed most of the day but had 2 runs for about 10 yards apiece on the last drive after the game was over and Tampa didn't care to boost his average. This is a tough TB run defense and Patterson was easily the more effective runner.
In addition, his passes are a mix of dumpoffs out of the backfield, but Smith is mixing in a few short passes from WR alignments. All of Davis's catches were dumpoffs and about half of them, again, came very late after the game was over.
I watched every snap from these two guys. Don't be afraid that Davis took 46 snaps to Patterson's 24. The official tally doesn't do the game justice. What actually happened was much closer to a 50-50 split than you would assume.
Davis was in the first 2 snaps then Patterson replaced him for 3rd down. That pattern repeated and then things changed. Patterson was the lead for several snaps including a couple at WR. They rotated back and forth for most of the first half but by my count Patterson had a slight lead or was at least even at that point. Then at the very end of the 2nd half, about 5 minutes left to go, suddenly Davis was in on every snap for about 8 or 9 plays. After they came back from halftime Davis was still the sole guy in for about a half dozen plays before Patterson returned to the game and they began rotating again. I haven't seen anything on a Patterson injury, so this is pure speculation, but based on the pattern I suspect maybe Patterson got shaken up for a period of time there and then was ok'ed to come back in 100%. Davis also took a handful of snaps by himself on the last drive of the game before Atlanta shifted to their backups and just ran the clock out themselves. If I'm correct about the Patterson injury scare then this is basically a 50-50 split already.
What I do know is that Patterson is by far the more effective and dangerous of the two. He scored 2 TD's here and had shots at a couple of others. At one point he caught a pass in the flats, broke two tackles, and looked like he'd have a nice 30 yard receiving TD but it was called back after he barely tapped his toe on the sideline. Not long after he lined up inside the 10 as a wildcat QB but fumbled the snap and took a loss. Ridley would score soon after. Patterson was getting far more looks inside the 5-10 yard line than Davis and that is leading to more scores.
His TD reception was a slick one-handed catch on a poorly thrown ball. His TD run was a toss play where he juked a safety out of his shoes. He even had a throwback screen on the left sideline where he broke a few tackles and took off down the field. All in all, there was a very concerted effort to get Patterson the ball, and it should be noted that from the very first kickoff Tampa squib/pooch kicked the ball to keep it away from Patterson on the return. They knew he was a threat and were trying to stop him. This is not a fad. This is not going away. Patterson is the top threat on this team right now, a possible RB1.5 threat, and if Davis goes down with injury it could be game on. Just note, he won't be the top threat for long because...
--Kyle Pitts (5-73-0/6) is so damn good it's unreal. He is essentially Calvin Johnson who occasionally comes in to block. He led the team in receiving here but you would never have known it from watching the game. He flashed only once after he juked his defender off the snap like a WR, broke over the middle, and had to reach way behind him to haul in the catch one-handed, never broke stride and took off between two defenders who had an angle on him. It was a surreal play, and one we're going to start seeing more and more...eventually...
You see, the one problem with Pitts right now is that he is not remotely being featured. He's playing a huge number of snaps, and the routes he was running were a little more varied and creative than last week, but I think Smith is still trying to manage him, hasn't taken off the training wheels just yet. The good news is that Pitts is able to lead this team in receiving while essentially being the 4th or 5th target right now. But it looks like they are slowly building up to unleashing him fully, and I think that day comes sooner rather than later. It's kind of like with Justin Jefferson last year. Through 2 games in 2020 he had 5 catches for 70 yards, and then in week 3 he exploded. That may be what we're about to see happen. Not saying it will for sure be week 3, but I do believe that explosion is coming.
Pitts is a beast, as good as advertised. Just try to remain patient. I know we all want our shiny new toys to immediately be weapons of mass destruction, but things rarely work out like that. This bet is going to pay off.
--Coming into this rewatch I was concerned about one thing for Pitts...Matt Ryan (35-46 for 300 yards, 2 TD/3 INT). He looked terrible last week and then you see his line this week and think it's more of the same. Well I'm happy to report that Ryan is mostly fine, he hasn't suddenly become terrible at football. He's not great, that's for sure, but this was a heavy pressure defense coming against his leaky offensive line, and he played a pretty smart, controlled game and had his team in contention. The three interceptions? All flukes. Literally all three were passes that were tipped at the line by TB defenders that came through the line essentially unblocked and the ball bounced straight up in the air to a Buccaneer all three times. Very unlucky but not Ryan's fault.
It does look like Ryan has lost a little arm strength though. He tossed a deep pass to a wide open Ridley once that floated in the air so long it gave Tampa time to close the gap and knock the ball loose. It's not a huge issue, just something to be aware of. The TD's might be a little harder to come by this year and that might keep Pitts as just the overall TE 4-5 but it's splitting hairs. Ridley is the one that's in trouble.
Speaking of Calvin Ridley (7-63-1/10) if you have him I'd sell now off a decent game. He's still got name value from last year, so don't sell him for pennies, but I'd try to turn him into something useful before you're left holding a WR2. That's all he is at this point. He'll still get a good number of targets this year, but he is not remotely the top guy for this new staff. Patterson is the weapon right now and will be the sidekick to Pitts very soon, they still want Davis to get a good number of carries, and that leaves Ridley as the 3rd or 4th option to go along with Ryan's weakening arm. Not a recipe for great fantasy success.
The only other notable fantasy “maybe” for Atlanta was Russell Gage (5-28-0/7) but you could do better. This isn't the high flying Falcons passing offense of the past few years. The volume is lower (although higher here because of the nature of the game) and the efficiency is lower. Gage also got hurt during the game and is out for week 3 which opens up more opportunity in the short term for Olamide Zaccheaus (2-22-0/4) but everything I said about Gage applies to him too.
--Ok 1500 words just on Atlanta's offense, so what do I have for Tampa Bay?
Not much, sorry. We know what these guys are. It's the Tom Brady show (24-36 for 276, 5 TD/0 INT) and for good reason. He looks as good as I've seen him in years. His arm is strong (he overthrew Evans on a 50 yard bomb...at 1000 years old...), he's accurate, making good decisions, I don't know, the guy must have sold his soul at this point. I don't know how else to explain it. Just be aware that he's getting a lot of TD's per attempt right now and that probably (probably) won't hold. You'd think at some point he won't have so many short fields or someone will score a rushing TD, but you never know when you're messing with the supernatural...
--Brady doesn't have a top target. Mike Evans (5-75-2/9) popped as expected after his poor outing last week. He looks fine and just missed on another 50 yard catch. Chris Godwin (4-62-1/5) is the co-#1 and the preferred short/medium depth target. Brady is going to feed the good matchups so these guys might have some ups and downs but both should be WR1.5's.
Antonio Brown (1-17-0/3) isn't the lead like we assumed. I was worried that he wasn't on the field week 1 for 2-WR sets, and now I'm sure of it. He's a good option and one Brady will exploit from time to time, but he's just a tick behind the other two in terms of involvement. He came up positive for COVID the middle of this week so he's probably a long shot to play Sunday. Unfortunate.
--Rob Gronkowski (4-39-2/5) is killing it for fantasy right now, but I'd be cautious if you expect that to continue. He doesn't look great honestly, not bad, but definitely a bit slower than he did a few years ago. He's lumbering a bit. He's also not a priority read for Brady. So far he's just been an open option as defenses are focused on stopping the 3 very good WR's. Gronk should have good TD's numbers moving forward as he's a great option in the redzone, but don't expect huge target/catch/yardage counts. Those days are long gone. Think of him more like 2020 Robert Tonyan.
--The two RB's are still rotating every other series in a split. Ronald Jones (6-27-0, 1-9-0/3) started the game and Leonard Fournette (11-52-0, 4-24-0/4) took the second series and so on and so forth. Fournette did end up taking a few more carries late as they tried to salt away the game and he gets a little bit more passing game work than Jones, so if you must have one you want Fournette. If either goes down with injury this suddenly gets a little more intriguing though and you might have a RB1.5 on your hands.
IDP Notes
--Nothing unexpected happened here other than Mike Edwards (4 tackles, 3 pd, 2 INT, 2 TD's) scoring two touchdowns. That will never happen again. He was just in the right place at the right time and the ball bounced right to him. No breakout here.
--As I've been warning for a year and a half now, Devin White (6 tackles) is struggling a little bit, both in real life and fantasy, now that the pieces around him aren't so strong. He's great when he gets other players to eat up blocks for him while he runs free to the play but not so good when he has to navigate traffic and do something himself. Lavonte David (8 tackles) is less heralded and always overlooked to some degree, but he's the better player.
--Atlanta's top corner AJ Terrell (2 tackles, 2 pd) got hurt mid/late game and has been ruled out against the Giants. It's another blow to an already shaky secondary. Might help Daniel Jones have another decent fantasy day.
Snap Counts of Interest
60 = Calvin Ridley
57 = Kyle Pitts
30 = Hayden Hurst
46 = Mike Davis
24 = Cordarrelle Patterson
56 = Chris Godwin
46 = Mike Evans
28 = Antonio Brown
51 = Rob Gronkowski
21 = Cam Brate
31 = Leonard Fournette
26 = Ronald Jones
