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    Thursday Night Football Start ‘Em Sit ‘Em: Insights on Bucky Irving, Drake London, Kyle Pitts, and Others

    Ahead of Buccaneers vs. Falcons on Thursday Night Football, we provide fantasy start/sit options for all of tonight's premier skill-position players.

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    This week’s Thursday Night Football matchup between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Atlanta Falcons features an abundance of fantasy football-relevant players between the two teams.

    Ahead of tonight’s game, we examine the fantasy outlooks for everyone who could be in your lineup for Week 5.

    • Spread: Falcons -2
    • Total: 43.5
    • Buccaneers implied points: 20.8
    • Falcons implied points: 22.8

    Baker Mayfield’s Fantasy Outlook

    I’m late to the party, but it’s time to consider Baker Mayfield a top-10 option at the position. He has just enough “crazy” in him (10+ yard run in three of four games) to threaten defenses in multiple ways, and he’s excelling at what the defense is giving him.

    Through four weeks, Mayfield has the league’s lowest average depth of throw (5.5 yards), and with a quartet of viable playmakers around him, that’s a sustainable source of fantasy income. We saw him execute the script to perfection on the first drive last week (nine passes with four different players seeing multiple targets), and I expect a similar game plan against a divisional rival that has allowed the second-highest completion percentage up to this point (73.4%).

    Last season, we saw Mayfield spike at times because he’d run into a Mike Evans takeover spot. This year, he’s controlling the field and this entire offense, something that resulted in a trio of top-five finishes in September.

    Banking on four in five weeks is a little rich, but I have Mayfield as a top-10 play and fully believe that he’s worthy of consideration over Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow, two quarterbacks who were among the MVP favorites just one month ago.

    Kirk Cousins’ Fantasy Outlook

    Kirk Cousins has looked suitable at times, and I’m encouraged that he has funneled 27.4% of his targets to his unquestioned top pass catcher in Drake London. However, nothing about the flow of this offense (18.8 points per game) makes me confident that there is much in the way of a ceiling.

    The next time Cousins throws for 245 yards as a Falcon will be the first, and that is the driving force behind him having just one top-20 finish on his 2024 résumé.

    I’m keeping an open mind that this talented team can have spike weeks this winter when the schedule lightens (Raiders-Giants-Commanders-Panthers to end the regular season), but for the time being, Cousins isn’t a top-15 signal-caller for me and doesn’t need to be rostered in 1QB formats.

    Rachaad White’s Fantasy Outlook

    This is a tenuous situation at best and could prove to be the toughest few weeks for evaluating Tampa Bay’s backfield.

    If you told me that the Bucs had a lead back who would get 70% of the work, I’d be excited about ranking that player as a top-15 option. Unfortunately, that’s not the world in which we live, and thus, neither Rachaad White nor Bucky Irving is a must-play for me.

    White racked up 234 yards against the Falcons last season, including a season-high 102 rushing yards at Atlanta in a four-point win. This backfield could end up reaching triple figures as a tandem, but given that White hasn’t carried the rock more than 10 times since the season opener, why should we assume that he’s getting enough usage to justify starting?

    White has three straight finishes as RB29 or worse, and this matchup isn’t ideal for a running back who relies on the passing game to pay the fantasy bills — Atlanta is allowing the third-fewest yards per RB target this season.

    White and Irving sit back to back in my ranks in the mid-20s.

    Gross.

    Bucky Irving’s Fantasy Outlook

    The rookie has a touchdown or a 30-yard rush in three or four games and looks an awfully lot like old-school Tony Pollard to White’s inefficient Ezekiel Elliott.

    OK, so that may be a bit dramatic, but Irving looks the part of a second-half-of-the-season breakout candidate, and the buying window may still be open if the manager with him isn’t yet sold on the direction of the Buccaneers’ offense.

    Irving got the first-half carry in scoring position last week, and it only feels like a matter of time until he emerges as the preferred fantasy option.

    Bijan Robinson’s Fantasy Outlook

    A hamstring injury limited Bijan Robinson this week, and that’s the last thing his managers want to hear for a game on short rest. In consecutive weeks, the presumptive star tailback has picked up just 59 yards on 23 carries with exactly zero of them gaining 10 yards.

    I’m not worried about Robinson’s talent in the least, but if he’s physically limited, we could have a problem. Atlanta couldn’t move the ball on the ground in this matchup late last season (running backs: 22 carries for 81 yards). With Cousins now on the roster, abandoning the run is more of an option this week than it was last season.

    That, however, might not be the worst thing.

    Robinson has caught 15 of 16 targets this season and has more yards as a pass catcher than a rusher over the past two weeks. He remains a starter due to his versatility, but you’ll want to keep tabs on Robinson’s status as kickoff approaches. Tyler Allgeier would move into my top 20 at the position if Robinson were ruled inactive.

    Chris Godwin’s Fantasy Outlook

    Chris Godwin managed only a WR33 finish last week against the Philadelphia Eagles, easily his worst finish of the season after being a top-20 performer in each of the first three weeks.

    Last season’s splits against the Falcons were interesting for Tampa Bay’s WR duo, as Godwin was the featured piece but did very little with the opportunity.

    WR splits vs. Atlanta, 2023

    • Godwin: 34.8% target share, scored 59.1% of expected PPR points
    • Evans: 21.5% target share, scored 96.5% of expected PPR points

    I tend to trust the usage more than the results, and it was clear that Godwin was in the matchup the Buccaneers wanted to exploit. He saw 48% of the fourth-quarter targets over these two games, a set of contests that saw them score 42 points to the Falcons’ 41.

    I’m back in on Godwin as an auto-start this week, especially with Atlanta boasting the lowest opponent average depth of target in the NFL (7.6 yards; league average: 10.3).

    Mike Evans’ Fantasy Outlook

    Evans snapped a two-game scoreless drought (yes, in the world of Evans, two games constitute as a “drought”) with a first-drive score against the Eagles last week.

    The strong performance (8-94-1) could have been even better if Evans hadn’t been subbed out for Trey Palmer after making a big play, with the latter making the most of that opportunity with a touchdown on the very next play. Nevertheless, Evans’ managers can’t be mad with his second top-five finish of the season.

    The risk is there for Evans given the reduction of downfield chances in Tampa’s offense (two WR finishes outside of the top 40 this season), especially in a matchup like this against a Falcons defense that has allowed just eight deep completions on the season (zero touchdowns).

    Evans isn’t a perfect player, and I’m not sure I’m counting on Mayfield sustaining his current play for three more months. However, this is an offense that I expect to embrace a high pass rate, which will result in him getting home more often than not.

    Drake London’s Fantasy Outlook

    After a pair of top-20 finishes, Drake London fell short of expectations (WR34) in a tough spot against the New Orleans Saints, but the usage was encouraging. London saw a 47.4% first-half target share and finished Week 4 with a season-high 12 targets. I’ll take my chances with that opportunity count and forgive him for the final numbers last week.

    In Week 14 last season, London lit up the Bucs to the tune of 10 catches and 172 yards on 11 targets, easily a career-high yardage total, and it wasn’t as if he entered the game with much in the way of form (no more than 55 receiving yards in four of five leading games).

    Tampa Bay has seen its defensive weakness shift a bit through one month, having proven more vulnerable on the ground than through the air (fourth-fewest yards allowed after the catch per reception to receivers this season). Yet, London’s featured role in a game that has shootout potential lands him inside of my top 15 wide receivers.

    Darnell Mooney’s Fantasy Outlook

    Darnell Mooney has been what we assumed he’d be: hit or miss.

    To date, he has a pair of top-25 finishes and two weeks where he wasn’t among the top 45 scorers at the position. Mooney had a 36-yard grab last week on a laser from Cousins, and their connection seems to be strong enough to justify rostering the WR2. However, playing him at this point isn’t the play.

    Atlanta’s big three (London, Kyle Pitts, Robinson) in Week 14, 2023, vs. Tampa Bay

    • 61.5% of Atlanta’s targets
    • 69.2% of Atlanta’s receptions
    • 81.6% of Atlanta’s receiving yards

    If that’s the plan for this meeting, Mooney is going to be left out in the cold. He’s a matchup-based play, and this isn’t a spot to roll the dice on him.

    Kyle Pitts’ Fantasy Outlook

    “Stats are for losers, man.”

    No, Raheem Morris, stats are actually for winners. The numbers that get thrown at you on a weekly basis are positive stats and reflect the ability to move the ball down the field — an ability that is strongly correlated to team success.

    OK, I had to get that off my chest.

    Pitts saw only one target on 19 first-half passes and finished Week 4 without a single reception. Maybe Pitts is the problem. We thought all of the changes in Atlanta would unlock this high-pedigree option, but with eight catches on 100 routes this season, the former Gator is as useless for fantasy purposes as ever.

    One more week.

    These two teams played in Week 14 last season, and Desmond Ridder got all three of the elite prospects in this offense a 30+ yard reception. A single play like that would likely result in a top-12 finish for Pitts — is that too much to ask?

    Pitts managers are in a similar situation as those with Mark Andrews rostered — too talented to drop for the equally underwhelming options on the wire.

    Give it one more week and come back to me. We can mourn together if we have to discuss the four-letter “d” word next week.

    Drop.

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