Instant fantasy football takeaways from Falcons-Buccaneers Thursday Night Football

• Wide receivers shine in a shootout: Mike Evans, Darnell Mooney And Drake London all scored at least 23 PPR points.

• Kyle Pitts recovered: The Atlanta Falcons Tight end posted his best numbers of the season, which should put him in the fantasy starting lineup.

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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

PFF’s fantasy football roundup focuses on player usage and stats, breaking down all the key information you need to achieve fantasy success in 2024.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Atlanta Falcons

Kyle Pitts jumps back: Pitt’s playing time and stats rebounded after hitting season lows last week.

Pitts didn’t accomplish any of his goals last week and his playing time has slowly but surely declined each week. There was a general trend for Charlie Woerner to come into the game on running plays, but Woerner had run seven routes last week that could have gone to Pitts, whose role last week was still better than most tight ends in the league, but the trend was downward was worrying.

This week, Pitts posted his second-best snap rate of the season, behind only Week 1. Considering how many games the Falcons played, it was particularly impressive that his snap rate was high. Pitts caught seven passes for 88 yards, his best fantasy performance of the season, although he didn’t have a touchdown. Although this was due in part to the Falcons running a lot of plays, Pitts was still more involved than usual early in the game.

This play doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be an asset to fantasy managers every week, but the combination of his target rate and his snap rate is enough to keep Pitts in the fantasy starting lineup going forward.

The Buccaneers continue to split the running backs: Rachaad White led the team in rushing yards for the first time this season.

White typically played at least 80% of the Buccaneers’ offensive snaps last season. In the first three games of this season, that number has dropped to 70-74%. Bucky Irving has outplayed White so far, dropping his playing time to 58% of Tampa Bay’s offensive shots last week. This included White playing fewer snaps on early downs and in passing situations.

This week the rotation was very similar to last week as White played slightly more than Irving on early downs while the two split short yardage situations. The biggest difference in their effort from last week to this one is that White was consistently on the field in third-and-intermediate or third-and-long situations, which wasn’t the case last week.

The big difference in performance was that White stopped a 56-yard run, but ran the ball outside of that play nine times for 16 yards. Irving consistently posted positive gains. Irving averaged 4.8 Yards per carry in four of five games this season while this has been the case fourth Time averaged by White 4.8 or better in his 39-game career. Both players were given few opportunities as the Falcons won the possession battle and the passing game was largely successful.

Both players remain borderline fantasy starters depending on the opponent.

Buccaneers adjust at wide receiver: The Buccaneers didn’t have three of their top six wide receivers.

Jalen McMillan missed his second straight game due to a hamstring injury Trey Palmer was sidelined after suffering a concussion last week. McMillan had been the team’s third option after falling behind Mike Evans And Chris Godwinwhile Palmer took over as the third option last week.

veteran Sterling Shepardwho started this season on the practice squad, was elevated to the active roster and served as the team’s third wide receiver throughout the game. He was expected to rotate at least a little with the undrafted rookie Cameron Johnsonbut Johnson suffered an ankle injury on his first offensive snap and did not return. Former Seattle Seahawks‘ Cameron Johnson was called up from the practice squad and became the primary substitute throughout the game, not playing much. He signed with the Buccaneers in June.

This allowed the team to rely almost entirely on its trusted weapons – Evans, Godwin and Cade Ottonalthough Shepard scored a touchdown. The Buccaneers’ third wide receiver should largely be avoided in reconfigured leagues, but there’s always a chance they can have a good game as the defense will have to focus heavily on other wide receivers.

Various notes

• Bijan Robinson continued to rotate Tyler Allgeier slightly more than at the start of the season, but it’s worth noting that he was on the injury report with a hamstring injury and was limited in practice. Besides, his week was a short one.
• Drake London missed 13 games in the second quarter while being evaluated for a concussion. He was able to return to the game. Once he returned to the game, he reverted to his usual role of never leaving the field.
• London caught eight passes for 117 yards and a touchdown from the slot. He had just 22 receptions from the slot in both 2022 and 2023 and scored a touchdown in both seasons combined. His previous high in receiving yards from the slot was 55, which was two weeks ago against the Kansas City Chiefs.
• London was taken out of the game in the penultimate game after sustaining an injury. He appeared to be fine during a postgame interview on the field shortly after the game. KhaDarel Hodge, who replaced London at the start of the game, replaced London again and scored the game-winning touchdown.
• Cade Otton has caught 16 passes in his last three games, which is the most for him in his NFL career over three games.

Table notes

• Snaps include plays that are called back due to penalties, including offensive holding or defensive pass interference. These plays have been removed from the other three statistics.
• Goals may vary from official NFL sources. The most likely discrepancy would be a clearly thrown away pass, where the NFL might pass the target to the closest receiver, whereas this data does not.
• Carries only occur on designed plays. Quarterback scrambles do not count toward the total number of carries in the game.