This is what kills your team; that top-ranked consensus player that has a fantasy faceplant. A fantasy faceplant is a player who finishes at least 15 spots lower than expected on a given week. Everyone knows Fantasy Football has so much variance week-to-week, so the faceplants might be just a blip. But as we go through the season we can see if the players show a trend. I will use FantasyPros each week to get the initial rankings. The players highlighted are from the TNF game and the Sunday day games. These do not include the SNF or MNF games. You can view last week’s faceplants here.
Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs
Started – QB3
Sunday Finish – QB19
The Denver Broncos have a top-10 defense in passing yards allowed, but still, this was another mediocre game by Mahomes with 184 yards and 1 interception. The Chiefs are winning with defense and an offense that just does enough.
Moving Forward: The Chiefs have seemed to turn it around but it’s not with a high-powered offense. In his last six games, Mahomes has 1 passing TD or less in five of them. You’ll still be starting Mahomes, but the production that you were banking on at the beginning of the season is not there.
Austin Ekeler, Los Angeles Chargers
Started – RB3
Sunday Finish – RB19
The Chargers offense scored 34 points vs the Bengals and Ekeler had one of the TDs on Sunday. He did have two fumbles which caused him to drop about seven spots in the RB rankings.
Moving Forward: No worries for Ekeler as in this one Jalen Guyton and Mike Williams had 200 of the 300 receiving yards. Ekeler still received 19 total touches which is what you like to see.
Ja’Marr Chase, Cincinnati Bengals
Started – WR6
Sunday Finish – WR38
Chase had another costly drop that led to an interception, and the Bengals never really recovered. He did end up with 8 targets which is the most he has had in the last three games.
Moving Forward: There should be some concern about Chase being a consistent WR1 on this offense. Tee Higgins again was the leading receiver and had 6 more targets than Chase. With the team leaning on Mixon more and Higgins getting more targets, Chase needs to be super-efficient to get those high-end numbers.
Terry McLaurin, Washington Football Team
Started – WR12
Sunday Finish – WR57
Mclaurin’s up and down season continued as he had his 2nd lowest amount of targets since Week 1, with five. Taylor Heinicke only had 196 yards and everyone was pretty evenly distributed.
Moving Forward: McLaurin is definitely a boom or bust play this year, which is disappointing because I thought he would have a top-5 season but it just has not been in the cards this season.
You can find me on Twitter @hayeb3 and all my fantasy football work
Brandon Haye
Brandon grew up in Jacksonville, Florida and works as a health insurance data analyst. He has no children, but two fur babies - Squirt and Brownie. He and his wife, Katie, spend their time playing poker and enjoying time with their pups. Brandon is a huge Michigan Wolverine and Jacksonville Jaguars fan. He at one time was in 77 fantasy leagues and loves the game of football. Brandon started writing for The Leauge Winners in 2021.