Fantasy football can be very random sometimes. Nothing is ever set in stone. Against a very good New Orleans Saints defense last week, Atlanta’s offense put up 27 points along with some very respectable fantasy performances from individual players.

Against a Dallas defense that’s not as good on paper, in what was expected to be a Texas shootout, the Falcons put up a season low 3 points and almost every fantasy relevant player on the team turned in a very disappointing fantasy outing.

It can be chalked up to one of those days, but that certainly doesn’t make fantasy managers who are in the middle of playoff pushes feel better.

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 10’s defeat against the Dallas Cowboys

Fantasy Stud/Dud 2021 History:

Past Studs: Cordarrelle Patterson (4), Kyle Pitts (2), Younghoe Koo (1), Matt Ryan

Past Duds: Mike Davis (3), Kyle Pitts (2) Matt Ryan (1), Younghoe Koo (1), Olamide Zaccheaus (1)

Fantasy Stud: Kyle Pitts

Stat Line: 4 catches, 60 receiving yards: 6.0 standard league points; 10.0 PPR points

If you’re thinking that this is a rather underwhelming stat line for someone being highlighted as the team’s top fantasy performer of the week, you would be correct. However, all of Atlanta’s other fantasy relevant players were just so bad that Pitts gets the honor here just by being average.

Almost all of Pitts’ damage came on the first two drives of the day, where he had three of his four catches and 52 of his 60 yards. It seemed like he was going to be in for another big day, but then the offense just shifted into neutral and stayed there throughout the rest of the afternoon.

Pitts is clearly Matt Ryan’s top receiver at this point, as nobody else had more than two catches or 22 receiving yards. In fact, the rookie accounted for more than half of Ryan’s total yardage in this game. It’s encouraging that even in a game where nothing went right for the offense, Pitts still delivered a TE1 performance. He continues to be a top option at the position, moving forward.

Dud

Matt Ryan: 117 passing yards, 0 passing touchdowns, 2 interceptions: 0.68 standard league/PPR points

After being the overall QB3 in NFL.com scoring leagues last week, against a much better Saints defense on paper, Matt Ryan will be outside of the top 32 scoring quarterbacks in Week 10 following the conclusion of the Monday night games.

Ryan had one of the worst games of his career both in real life and in the realm of fantasy football as he could get nothing going following the second drive of the game. The 117 passing yards are a career low (in games where he did not get injured), and the lack of touchdowns was a killer to fantasy managers who were streaming the Boston College product.

With a Thursday Night Football matchup against a dominant New England Patriots defense on the horizon, I wouldn’t recommend starting Matt Ryan unless you’re absolutely desperate.