Talk about a momentum stopper. After back to back winning weeks for the Falcons, they served as Carolina’s “get right” game, as the division rival Panthers snapped a four game losing streak at the Birds’ expense.

The offense looked completely disjointed and flat throughout the afternoon. It was truly the worst it has looked since the Week 1 abomination against the Eagles, and that was felt on the fantasy scoreboards. It didn’t help that the Panthers were able to ground and pound their way to obscenely long drives, which limited Atlanta’s offensive output even more.

There is a lot of great content available here at the Falcoholic, and I encourage you to check it out if you want some in-depth analysis. This article will look at things strictly from a fantasy football perspective (that means looking at nothing other than pure statistics). Here are Atlanta’s fantasy stud and fantasy dud from Week 8’s defeat against the Carolina Panthers.

Fantasy Stud/Dud 2021 History:

Past Studs: Cordarrelle Patterson (3), Kyle Pitts (2), Younghoe Koo (1)

Past Duds: Mike Davis (2), Matt Ryan (1), Kyle Pitts (1), Younghoe Koo (1), Olamide Zaccheaus (1)

Fantasy Stud: Cordarrelle Patterson

Stat Line: 9 carries, 35 rushing yards, 5 catches, 37 receiving yards, 1 receiving touchdown: 13.20 standard league points; 18.20 PPR points

Even in a game where the team scrounges up a measly 213 total yards, Cordarrelle Patterson delivers for fantasy manager — he can do no wrong this season.

After Patterson out-touched Mike Davis 16-4 last week, the team made a more concentrated effort to once again split work between their RBs, and the result was a 14-14 touch output. The yardage was nearly identical, as both RBs had a solid performance, but it was Patterson who was the only Falcon to find the end zone all afternoon. It came off of an effort play where he caught the ball at the 12-yard-line, broke one tackle, and sprinted toward the end zone, diving in with another Panthers defender on his back.

Patterson continues to be a revelation in his age-30 breakout season. He has already set his career high in rushing yardage, and is well on his way toward doing the same in receiving yardage. This was his seventh touchdown of the season, which ties his career best from his rookie year.

In PPR leagues, Patterson put up RB1 numbers (described as being one of the 12 highest scorers at the position) through Sundays games. He’s a “set it and forget it” player in your starting lineup moving forward.

Dud

Kyle Pitts: 2 catches, 13 receiving yards: 1.3 standard league points; 3.3 PPR points

This was a rough one for Pitts fantasy owners who were over the moon after his back to back 100-yard performances. It was the perfect recipe for the Panthers to stop the phenom tight end — Matt Ryan was hounded all afternoon, and the Falcons completely lacked any complimentary weapons to discourage Carolina from double and triple covering the rookie.

Pitts was still a handful for the Panther secondary, drawing a couple of big defensive pass interference penalties, but you don’t get any fantasy points for drawn flags. The rookie did drop a perfect third down pass which would have gone for a big gain down the sideline in the fourth quarter. That was blow to both fantasy owners and Falcons fans as Younghoe Koo missed the ensuing kick, which would have given Atlanta the lead.

These games will happen for any rookie tight end. The position is so barren along the fantasy landscape that there’s no way you can possibly consider not playing Pitts every week, however, especially given how big of a part he plays in Atlanta’s gameplan.