Welcome to Week 6 of my weekly article series for In-Between Media (IBT), giving you my takes on the fantasy football “winners and losers” after each week of action. This will be a fun topic to cover, and I will include my reasoning behind the judgments, along with actionable analysis when possible.
Now, let’s break down Week 6 of the NFL season.
Fantasy Football Winners & Losers: Week 6
Fantasy Football Winners
Michael Mayer (TE, Las Vegas Raiders)
Raiders’ rookie TE Michael Mayer was once seen as the top TE in the 2023 class. Mayer’s hype declined as the 2023 season approached, partially due to his landing spot in Las Vegas with Jimmy Garoppolo as his QB. This coincided with increasing hype for the other three top TEs: Dalton Kincaid, Sam LaPorta and Luke Musgrave. Outside of dynasty formats, Mayer was forgotten. And through the first four weeks of 2023, he stayed there, seeing only two total targets, with one catch for two yards. His snap share was in the 40% range, but he was mostly asked to block.
In Week 5, Mayer’s snap share exceeded 60%, and he caught two of three targets for 39 yards. He looked good on those catches, gaining most of the 39 yards after the catch. Mayer was back on the radar.
Don’t forget about Michael Mayer
Snap share last 3 weeks:
Week 3: 40%
Week 4: 51%
Week 5: 66%11.4% rostered on Sleeper. Still only a max of 3 targets (Week 5) but worth monitoring
Highlight from:https://t.co/GTlvJhlkys pic.twitter.com/Mm28jMNH2n
— Scott Rinear (@MunderDifflinFF) October 11, 2023
Mayer is a fantasy football winner in Week 6 because that trend toward pass-catching shot up further. He caught five passes on six targets for a team-leading 75 yards and a 19.4% target share, second only to Jakobi Meyers. His 12.5 Points Per Reception (PPR) points put him in the top 10 for the week, and he looks to have become a focal point of the Raiders’ offense.
Chuba Hubbard (RB, Carolina Panthers)
For multiple weeks, Chuba Hubbard has been more effective than teammate Miles Sanders. Sanders’ Yards Per Carry (YPC) from Week 1 to Week 4 decreased weekly, and he saw only seven carries in Week 5. The former Penn State Nittany Lion was battling an injury, but whispers mounted that Hubbard might take the lead-back role. Sanders did miss Week 6 due to injury, and Hubbard is a fantasy football winner because he literally ran with the opportunity.
Hubbard rushed for 88 yards on 19 attempts (4.6 YPC) and found the endzone against the Dolphins. The shoulder injury that kept Sanders out in Week 6 should not keep him sidelined long-term, but Hubbard likely secured a larger role, potentially supplanting Sanders atop the Panthers’ RB depth chart with his performance.
Isiah Pacheco (RB, Kansas City Chiefs)
Isiah Pacheco is a fantasy football winner in Week 6 because he has become the “Bell Cow” RB for the Chiefs, including six catches on six targets against the Broncos. Through the first three weeks, Pacheco did lead the Chiefs in RB attempts and saw the most RB targets in two of the three games. However, his RB Opportunity Share was right around 56%.
The last three games have seen Pacheco’s share of the RB carries and targets jump to 73%, and his 15.4% target share in Week 6 was a career-high. With Clyde Edwards-Helaire and Jerick McKinnon in the mix and Pacheco’s seventh-round draft capital, his role was not necessarily set in stone. At a minimum, it made sense that his RB teammates would siphon most of the targets. Pacheco now comfortably leads this RB room in both carries and targets, and there is no indication that will change.
Jakobi Meyers (WR, Las Vegas Raiders)
Jakobi Meyers is shaping up to be one of the biggest steals of 2023.
Jakobi Meyers
Target share: 26.7% (16th)
TPRR: 0.25 (16th)
Tgts/game: 9.0
Rec/game: 6.3
Yds/game: 68.5
3 TDs
PPR WR14 in points per game (17.6)Redraft ADP (@SleeperHQ): WR55
One of the biggest steals of 2023
— Scott Rinear (@MunderDifflinFF) October 15, 2023
Meyers is quickly becoming the best undrafted WR story since former Seahawk Doug Baldwin. Already a top-15 WR entering Week 6, Meyers is a winner because he didn’t skip a beat against the Patriots, a top-15 toughest matchup versus fantasy WRs this season. On a day when Davante Adams disappointed, Meyers led the Raiders in targets and scored 17.1 PPR fantasy points. Meyers is a must-start WR2, especially with bye weeks in full force.
Fantasy Football Losers
Brock Purdy (QB, San Francisco 49ers)
Let me be clear: I am not jumping on Brock Purdy’s bad performance in Week 6 as some “see, I told you he’s bad” moment. Plenty of people are doing that. Ironically, Purdy’s 7.7-fantasy point outing came only a few days after I proclaimed that I was wrong about him on “The In-Between Media Fantasy Football Podcast.” And I’m not backtracking on that. He is a better QB than I thought when we were dealing with a smaller sample size.
Purdy is a fantasy football loser in Week 6 because, on both ESPN and Sleeper, his rostership (80% range) and start percentage (~40%, higher in two-QB formats) climbed to a point where he was a major disappointment to a lot of managers.
On a more general level, this was the first time Purdy has had to deal with significant adversity. Yes, two of his crucial weapons both left the game with injuries (Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel), and the Browns are one of the tougher QB matchups. But he still had Brandon Aiyuk and George Kittle against a team starting P.J. Walker at QB. It wasn’t just that he struggled, he looked plain bad outside of a few throws late. It is not yet known how serious the shoulder injury is for Samuel or the oblique injury is for McCaffrey, but Purdy’s Week 6 performance takes a big chunk out of my confidence in starting him in fantasy moving forward.
DeAndre Hopkins (WR, Tennessee Titans)
DeAndre Hopkins was a fantasy football loser in Week 6, not only due to his disappointing fantasy day (three PPR points). It has more to do with the current state of affairs in Tennessee. Ryan Tannehill suffered an ankle injury in the third quarter against the Ravens that knocked him out of the game. He was taken to the locker room on a cart and was on crutches when addressing the media after the game. Maybe it’s precautionary, but Tannehill missed five total games last year after injuring the same ankle. Second-year QB Malik Willis took over, and there is the inevitable speculation about rookie QB Will Levis.
The problem is that Tannehill hasn’t been good this year either, and relying on a less-experienced signal caller (either one) will likely lead to an even more run-heavy strategy. Hopkins was coming off a vintage Hopkins game in Week 5, with 140 yards in 11 targets. But to go from that to only one catch for 20 yards in Week 6, combined with at least a short-term QB downgrade (from bad to worse), and Hopkins is one of the bigger Week 6 losers.
Emari Demercado (RB, Arizona Cardinals)
I am not ashamed to say I didn’t really know who Emari Demarcado was a month ago. Maybe I should have read into that a little more. Demarcado is a Week 6 loser because a lot of managers spent a chunk of their Free Agent Acquisition Budget (FAAB) or waiver priority on the Undrafted Free Agent (UDFA) RB, including me. With James Conner leaving Week 5 with an injury, Demarcado took over as the lead back, rushing for 45 yards and a score on 10 carries and seeing three targets.
Backup RB Keaontay Ingram missed Week 5 with a neck injury. While a Week 6 return was forecasted, the lure of the unknown and undrafted rookie who flashed and scored the previous week led to a classic waiver wire trap for many of us. Even the Cardinals elevating veteran Damien Williams from their practice squad wasn’t enough to throw many of us off the scent.
The result? Cardinal RBs were handed to ball 20 times against the Rams. Ingram saw 10 of them. Williams saw eight of them. That left two carries (and one target) for Demarcado for only 3.7 PPR fantasy points.
Not What It Seems: Fantasy Football Panic Meter
The following players were fantasy disappointments in Week 6, but my concern is low moving forward:
- Puka Nacua (WR, Los Angeles Rams)
- Nico Collins (WR, Houston Texans)
- Jalen Hurts (QB, Philadelphia Eagles)
- Bijan Robinson (RB, Atlanta Falcons)
The following players were disappointments in Week 6, and I am concerned about them moving forward:
- Jahan Dotson (WR, Washington Commanders)
- Jaxon Smith-Njigba (WR, Seattle Seahawks)
- Kirk Cousins (QB, Minnesota Vikings)
- Elijah Moore (WR, Cleveland Browns)
- Logan Thomas (TE, Washington Commanders)
Thanks for reading my Week 6 fantasy football winners and losers. As always, find me on Twitter, talking fantasy football, joking around, posting GIFs and lending my support where it’s needed @MunderDifflinFF.
*Photo Credit: Denny Medley – USA TODAY Sports*