Week #5 of the NFL season is behind us. It’s hard to believe that the regular football season is almost half over, but the good part of this is now we have a lot of data to make daily fantasy football decisions off of, and this will help the astute fantasy manager to make much stronger decisions for the remainder of the season. With that in mind, it’s time to look at the busts and diamonds for the week.
Busts
Julian Edelman, WR, New England Patriots
Edelman had 5 receptions on Sunday in the Patriots win over the Cleveland Browns, but there were only 35 yards gained from this. He had no touchdowns. Edelman is a very talented receiver, as we’ve seen over the last several weeks, but with Brady back in the mix and other targets being healthy, Edelman was not used as much as he was over the first four weeks of the season. Edelman has a lot of potential on fantasy rosters, but he was far too expensive this week in most leagues. If his price drops considerably, then he should be considered for your team.
A.J. Green, WR, Cincinnati Bengals
Green had just 4 receptions on 8 targets on Sunday for a total of 50 yards. No touchdowns were received. After averaging well over 100 yards per game, Green had established a much higher expectation for his play. This seems to be a recurring theme for him already this season; back in week two, Green had 8 targets again, but only 2 receptions and 38 yards. He seems to be pretty inconsistent so far this year, but he is talented enough that his good days will be great. However, that’s a bit too risky for us to keep testing our luck on.
Jarvis Landry, WR, Miami Dolphins
This has been another disappointing week for Landry and the Dolphins. Landry had just 3 receptions for 28 yards on Sunday, along with a measly 2 yards in rushing. As the Dolphins’ go to wide out, Landry should have been seeing much more action than this, but thanks to an overwhelming Tennessee defense, Landry didn’t have the ability to do what he was expected. This is becoming a theme for his season, unfortunately.
Diamonds
Ryan Matthews, RB, Philadelphia Eagles
Matthews was under the radar until this game. He was priced well below average in the running back category, and had one of the better early performances at the position. This is mostly due to the contributions he made for his team with his receiving. He had 5 receptions for 33 yards, a receiving touchdown, and 42 rushing yards. The downside of Matthews was that he had a fumble for a loss, but this only took away a few points from him. Otherwise, this was a breakout game for him. It’s realistic to expect another performance with similar stats from him in the future.
Tomm Brady, QB, New England Patriots
Brady’s excellent was only a surprise to us because he hadn’t been allowed to practice with the team for several weeks. But, even with this burden on him, he threw 3 touchdowns on Sunday, had 406 yards in passing, and even picked up 14 yards in rushing. We were wary about drafting him before this game because of the fact that he was so expensive, but he easily made up for the steep price tag by adding some strong value to any team that had him. The Browns are definitely not the strongest defense in the NFL, but this was a warmup for Brady and we should expect great things from him this year.
Martellus Bennett, TE, New England Patriots
With the return of Brady, suddenly New England’s TE’s were being heavily utilized again. Bennett had 3 touchdown receptions, and had 6 catches for 67 yards. No one really expected the second string TE to have such a monster performance, but he did, and as a result, we can expect his price to go way up in the coming weeks in most daily fantasy football leagues. Unfortunately, this kind of a performance is not likely to happen with regularly.
