Atlanta Falcons fantasy stud and dud from Week 9

The good times are rolling! After going into the bye week having won back to back games for the first time all season, the Atlanta Falcons came out of that bye with a third win in succession. The offense is a juggernaut, and the fantasy points are flowing.

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 9’s victory against the Washington Redskins.

Fantasy Stud/Dud 2018 History:

Past Studs: Matt Ryan (3), Julio Jones (1), Calvin Ridley (1), Mohamed Sanu (1), Giorgio Tavecchio (1)

Past Duds: Atlanta D/ST (2), Mohamed Sanu (2), Devonta Freeman (1), Austin Hooper (1), Tevin Coleman (1)

Stud - Matt Ryan

Stat Line: 350 passing yards, 4 passing touchdowns, 1 interception: 28.0 standard league/PPR points

I really considered giving this one to Julio Jones, who scored his first touchdown of the season while also going for 121 receiving yards, but it’s impossible to give it to anyone other than Matt Ryan, who was once again brilliant.

Ryan dissected a top five Washington defense, moving the ball up and down the field all afternoon and finishing drives with touchdowns. Four of Atlanta’s first five drives culminated in a touchdown, and that fifth would have been one as well had it not been for some miscommunication between Ryan and Calvin Ridley, who was wide open for a score. That miscommunication resulted in Ryan’s first interception thrown since Week 2.

Ryan threw yet another four TDs in this one — this is the fifth time in eight games this year where he’s accounted for more than two scores, something he didn’t do once all of last season. Ryan is the QB2 in all of fantasy football, and he’s making fantasy players who rolled the dice on him late in drafts very happy.

Ryan now far and away leads the pack in terms of fantasy stud selections, with four while nobody else has gotten the honor more than once.

Dud

Mohamed Sanu: 4 catches, 45 receiving yards: 4.5 standard league points, 8.5 PPR points

I promise I’m not trying to intentionally pick on Sanu. This is one of those weeks where I’d actually rather not give the dud to anybody after the way the offense performed, but he’s once again the dud by default.

It came down to Sanu and Austin Hooper, who had one less catch and four less yards than the Rutgers man. Hooper, however, finished as the TE18 in fantasy this week, while Sanu finished as the WR45. As a result, Hooper gets saved from the dishonor because of how shallow the tight end position is.

Sanu almost made fantasy owners who started him very happy in the fourth quarter, when he scored a touchdown which ended up being called back because of an illegal pick play by Marvin Hall. As a result, he and Hooper finished with the lowest marks among Atlanta’s fantasy relevant players.