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As we push past the quarter mark of the 2020 NFL season, it gets harder and harder to keep track of the maturations created by COVID. Games are getting rescheduled, pushed, and canceled. Teams are being given last-minute bye weeks that alter the future schedule in half a dozen or more different ways. We gain Tuesday contests and lose Thursday ones. Everything remains an option.
On top of that, we still have a slew of stud players sidelined due to injury or other circumstances, specifically at wide receiver. It isn't every week that Chase Claypool and Travis Fulgham will be the scoring leaders at the position, but it is easier to imagine random players sliding to the top when Julio Jones, Davante Adams, and Michael Thomas continue to miss games.
In any event, surprise good performances aren't what sustain a fantasy team. There is no way to bank on continually finding diamonds in the rough week after week. Instead, it is consistency from the studs at the top that drive fantasy success. Yet even the best of players put up dud performances. Not all duds are created equal though. Some disastrous performances are signs of more to come. Here are Week 5's studs turned duds.
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(Editor's Note: Because of weekly scheduling, this article was written before Tuesday's game between Buffalo and Tennessee.)
Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens
For the second time in the past three weeks, Jackson finished well outside the top 12 quarterbacks. Alarmingly, for the first time this season, Week 5's dud showed him do absolutely nothing running with the football. He combined three rushing yards with a 19-of-37 day through the air, bringing his season completion percentage to 24th in the NFL at 63.7 percent. The game was an easy win for Baltimore, which speaks for his lack of running. But his lack of success through the air has to be mitigated by something to make him a stud fantasy performer. After a Week 7 bye, the Ravens face five tough defenses in a row. If this is what we get against Cincinnati, what is in store for fantasy managers during that midseason stretch?
Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Kansas City Chiefs
80 total yards with no scores isn't going to cut it from a first-round fantasy back. Week 5 was the fourth straight game where CEH's production remained rather ordinary in non-PPR leagues. Ever since his Week 1 breakout, he has become a bigger threat in the passing game yet less of a producer overall. He is averaging just 3.68 yards per carry since that first game. It would be easy to blame game script, but not all of Kansas City's games have been shootouts or close battles that require endless passing to keep pace. Instead, it could be the offensive line, which ranked first in pass protection but was 17th in adjusted line yards even before the team suffered its first loss of the season this week. Edwards-Helaire remains a quality fantasy option, but it doesn't look like he will have the consistent heights that Week 1 hinted at. It's more likely that a great CEH game moving forward will see balanced rushing and receiving buoyed by a touchdown, if he ever finds the end zone again.
Tyler Lockett, Seattle Seahawks
When someone has been surpassed by his own teammate, it is time to move him off the stud list. Lockett remains a very good wide receiver on a high-powered offense, but he doesn't appear to be Russell Wilson's go-to guy anymore, at least for the big plays. Through five games, Lockett trails DK Metcalf by just one target, but the other numbers greatly favor the big man on the outside. Metcalf is ninth in the NFL in average targeted air yards (Lockett is 75th), third in percent of team air yards (33rd), and is averaging 6.1 yards after reception (3.6). Lockett isn't pushing the defense down the field and isn't doing all that much with the ball after the catch. And unlike most situations where one player has the big-play ability and the other plays underneath, it is actually Metcalf who has been far more consistent for fantasy managers. Lockett has had one monstrous game but has been simply solid the rest of the year to this point.
Amari Cooper, Dallas Cowboys
Like Lockett, Cooper may be falling victim to having teammates with too much talent. That, combined with the injury to Dak Prescott, could alter his value moving forward. Cooper's Week 5 was his first bad game of the season. He finished with two catches for 23 yards. As the passes get spread around, he has just one touchdown on the season and now trails CeeDee Lamb in yards. Though Cooper has more than twice as many receptions as Michael Gallup, Gallup is also catching up to Cooper in yardage, as he averages nearly double Cooper's yards per reception. All the volume could be spread around when Prescott was airing it out 50 times a game, but what about when the team turns back to the run to protect Andy Dalton? It remains to be seen how the target share will shake out with Dalton at quarterback, but Cooper managers cannot be comfortable that the previous status quo will remain.
George Kittle, San Francisco 49ers
There are only two stud tight ends in the league. One easily paced the position in scoring this week. The other, Kittle, did not perform up to his standards thanks to wildness at the quarterback position. It is hard to feel great about Kittle's standing with what San Francisco is getting out of its quarterbacks right now, but it's not a time to worry. Jimmy Garoppolo clearly wasn't healthy yet in Week 5. And in Week 4, with Garoppolo sidelined and a QB change taking place midgame, Kittle excelled. Week 5 saw particularly egregious QB play; the future should be steadier.
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