On target, week 3: Get Darnell Mooney, more fantasy football pass-catcher analysis

On Target is a periodic feature where we explore a combination of pass-catcher data. Some of the analysis will be tied to general statistics and some will focus on modern metrics.

There are a lot of numbers floating around, so let’s take a look at what happens in two NFL weeks.

Thanks to Pro Football Reference and Fantasy Points for the data used in this article.

Those are half-point PPR ranks, the standard scoring format for Yahoo leagues. What do these three players have in common, besides being talented receivers?

They are all connected to a starting quarterback.

Of course, the rookie QBs are still developing. Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels and Bo Nix are still waiting for their first touchdown pass. The Broncos are 0-2, the Bears should be 0-2 (thanks, Will Levis) and the Commanders are only 1-1 because the Giants are also a mess.

I probably have the most confidence in Sutton justifying his summer ADP because I trust Sean Payton to figure some things out in Denver. Moore and McLaurin don’t offer similar luxuries, as their play-callers are Shane Waldron and Kliff Kingsbury. After watching Waldron mismanage Seattle’s offense last year, I’m mystified that the Bears hand-picked him to lead their 2024 offense. The Commanders have been shockingly dull with their deployment of McLaurin, making him easier to defend than he should be.

Cooper’s statistics after two weeks are hard to swallow. He’s been targeted 17 times, but has caught just five. It’s odd to see a 29.4% catch rate for a veteran player who’s been to the Pro Bowl five times.

Cooper is partly to blame, with three drops in two weeks. He dropped just five passes last year. But Cooper has also been hurt by Deshaun Watson’s struggles — only 58.8 percent of passes to Cooper have been deemed catchable (per Fantasy Points data), compared to 100 percent of Elijah Moore targets and 71.4 percent of Jerry Jeudy targets.

Like most of you, I have little faith in Watson. But I trust Cooper, and I trust play designer Kevin Stefanski. Any reasonable buy-low list should have Cooper somewhere.

All indications are that Rashid Shaheed is a cheat code

Let’s take a look at the stats Shaheed currently leads the NFL in:

• Touchdown catches, 2 (tied with several others)

• Yards per target, 18.8

• Punt return average, 20.0 (useful in hybrid formats; we see you, Scott Fish)

About half the NFL teams changed their play-callers this offseason, and it appears Klint Kubiak is as much of a home run as any signing. Kubiak, the son of Gary Kubiak and thus an extended branch of the Mike Shanahan coaching tree, has completely changed New Orleans’ offensive strategy. The Saints rarely used play-action and pre-snap motion last year; now they use those concepts as often as anyone. It’s helped make the Saints the best (and certainly most improved) offense in the league in two weeks.

The Saints are being more creative with Shaheed this year — he had three carries against Dallas, compared to seven last year. He’s playing about two-thirds of the offensive snaps, a role that could certainly grow. And New Orleans’ offense is highly focused, with Shaheed, Alvin Kamara and Chris Olave catching 25 of the 39 targets so far.

I wish I had Shaheed on all my rosters, and unfortunately, given his reasonable summer ADP, that was somewhat doable. He’s firmly in the circle of trust going forward.

Gardner Minshew leads the NFL with a 78.5% passing percentage

This is obviously a quarterback stat and not a pass-catcher stat, but it’s such a staggering outlier that I had to include it here. Minshew completed just 48.5 percent of his passes in the preseason, with most of his plays coming against backup defenders and vanilla defenses. I was worried that the Raiders offense had look-out-below potential.

Maybe I underestimated Minshew or the boost he would get from the luxury of playing with all of the team’s first-string players. And maybe I underestimated the dynamic young-and-old duo of Brock Bowers and Davante Adams, who have both been fantastic.

Bowers strikes me as the player we expected Kyle Pitts to be; he has a chance to break a bunch of rookie TE records. And Adams has gotten off to a great start, catching 14 of 18 targets for 9.4 yards per target — the highest YPT average of his career. And it’s not like the Raiders have an easy schedule — they open with the Chargers and Ravens.

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Minshew is riding high on his luck, with 82.4 percent of his passes rated “on target” and only 8.8 percent of his passes rated “bad.” Those are the highest percentages of his career in both stats. His teammates are coming through, too; only one of Minshew’s 71 passes has been dropped.

Las Vegas’ schedule is a busy one following its Week 3 matchup against Carolina, but this passing game should exceed my summer expectations.

Perhaps Mooney let the cat out of the bag on Monday in Philadelphia when he scored a 41-yard rushing touchdown and finished with a 3-88-1 line that caused a surprise. But Mooney also deserves attention for his route completion percentage. He currently runs a route on 91.5 percent of Atlanta’s dropbacks, which ranks sixth in the NFL. And while Kirk Cousins ​​is still working off some rust, he at least played center in Week 2 and the team welcomed play-action back into the scheme.

I’m shocked that Mooney only appears in 21% of Yahoo’s competitions.

Henry is also coming off a showcase game, a juicy 8-109-0 line against Seattle. But what really excites me is how much the Patriots are prioritizing Henry. He runs a route on 86.9% of dropbacks, which is the highest percentage among tight ends in the league.

Maybe you trust Daniel Jones, maybe you don’t. But the Giants have made good on their promise to make Nabers a heavy player in the passing game. Nabers has a whopping 50% of first-read targets through two weeks, one of two players to top that statistic over 40% (Cooper Kupp, now injured, is at 52.1%).

It’s also worth noting that intriguing sophomore WR Quentin Johnston ranks third in this statistic.