Atlanta Falcons fantasy stud and dud from Week 5

Another game, another loss. It’s becoming second nature at this point, unfortunately. Unlike the past two losses, however, the offense was shut down for the most part in this one, so not even fantasy players benefited as much.

We have a lot of great content analyzing the game here at The Falcoholic, but in this article, we’ll look at things strictly from a fantasy football perspective. Let’s look at Atlanta’s top fantasy performer and biggest fantasy disappointment from Week 5’s defeat against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Fantasy Stud/Dud 2018 History:

Past Studs: Matt Ryan (2), Julio Jones (1), Calvin Ridley (1)

Past Duds: Devonta Freeman (1), Mohamed Sanu (1), Atlanta D/ST (1), Austin Hooper (1)

Stud - Mohamed Sanu

Stat Line - 4 catches, 73 receiving yards, 1 touchdown: 13.3 standard league points, 17.3 PPR points

Mohamed Sanu just keeps proving me wrong every week. For the third straight week, I suggested to sit Sanu in my weekly start/sit column, and for the third straight week he put up starter worthy numbers in what should’ve been a poor situation for him. I solemnly swear not to put the “sit” by Sanu’s name this upcoming week.

It was an overall very bad game for all of the usual big names on offense. Julio Jones and Calvin Ridley were each held to under 65 receiving yards, Matt Ryan threw one TD pass and failed to reach 300 yards passing while fumbling once and the run game was just shut down completely.

Sanu accounted for the only receiving touchdown in this one — a 43-yard catch and run on the team’s second drive of the game — and he finished second on the team with 73 receiving yards. Since he was one of the only players not to lay an egg in Week 5, giving Sanu his first “stud” award was an easy decision.

Dud

Tevin Coleman: 7 carries, 15 rushing yards, 2 catches, 15 receiving yards: 3.0 standard league points, 5.0 PPR points

Both Freeman and Coleman were horrendous from a fantasy standpoint, in a game where both of them looked starter worthy coming into the week. Freeman gets somewhat of a benefit of the doubt in that this was his first game back from injury. He also recorded a few more yards from scrimmage than Coleman (41 to 30), so Teco gets the dishonor this week.

Coleman got absolutely nothing going in this one, averaging a brutal 2.1 yards per carry. He’s been disappointing in every game since his explosion against the Panthers in Week 2, but he didn’t have the volume to establish a high fantasy floor this week.

Ito Smith was the only Falcons’ RB to find the end zone, probably infuriating both Freeman and Coleman fantasy owners alike. It’s not like either of them deserved to score that garbage time TD when the game was already out of hand, however. Coleman has failed to take advantage of his opportunity with Freeman sidelined.