The Falcons sort of fell back down to earth after riding the high of victory against the 49ers, and they were absolutely pummeled by a Bengals offense which went for an early kill against a team that was down most of their starting cornerback corps.

Cincy absolutely jumped on Atlanta with 21 unanswered points on their first three drives, and it seemed like disaster was brewing for the Falcons and anyone who started any fantasy relevant players from the team. Atlanta answered by scoring 17 of the next 24 points in the game before the half to salvage the fantasy days of some players on the offense.

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 7’s defeat against the Cincinnati Bengals

Fantasy Stud/Dud 2022 History:

Past Studs: Cordarrelle Patterson (2), Marcus Mariota (2), Drake London (1), Tyler Allgeier (1)

Past Duds: Kyle Pitts (2), Younghoe Koo (2) Falcons D/ST (1), Marcus Mariota (1)

Fantasy Stud - Tyler Allgeier

Stat Line - 16 carries, 50 rushing yards, 1 rushing touchdown: 11.0 standard league/PPR points

Allgeier came through for fantasy owners who may have been in a bye week pinch, or just needed a strong flex play in general.

After more or less splitting carries with Caleb Huntley the past three weeks (38 total carries vs. 34 for Huntley), Allgeier was featured more in the offense, getting a career-high 16 totes with no other player receiving more than six.

The rookie out of BYU wasn’t particularly efficient, with a 3.1 yards per carry mark, but he did score his first career touchdown in the second quarter. He’s received doubled digits carries in five of the past six games but has just two receptions (on two targets) on the season, lowering his floor in PPR formats.

Allgeier likely won’t be featured when Cordarrelle Patterson comes back (eligible to come off IR after next week) and we have no idea how much Damien Williams’ impending return will overshadow the rookie. As long as Williams remains out, Allgeier can be started once more in Week 8, but will be relegated to a speculative handcuff in a full blown committee after that if Patterson does indeed come back when first eligible.

Dud

Kyle Pitts: 3 catches, 9 receiving yards: 0.9 standard league points; 3.9 PPR points

Drake London could have easily gone in this section as well, given his one reception for nine yards, but Pitts being started in over 20% more of NFL.com leagues this week (66.9% vs. 45.3%) and having the higher draft pedigree slots him in instead.

This has been a nightmare season for anyone who invested a high draft pick for Pitts’ services. He’s only had one game where he tallied more than 25 receiving yards and has one touchdown on the season. Down three scores early, the game script favored Pitts being heavily involved, but the Falcons continued capping Marcus Mariota’s passes. Despite trailing by three possessions almost the entire afternoon, there were only 13 passes attempted on Atlanta’s side.

Pitts was at least targeted in the red zone more, drawing a defensive pass interference in the end zone and then coming centimeters away from scoring on back-to-back plays in the second quarter. Close doesn’t score fantasy points, however.

With Atlanta running an offense that looks like something out of the glory days of ‘80s ground and pound, it’s impossible to feel good about starting Pitts moving forward. Unfortunately, with how much of a fantasy wasteland the tight end position is, you may not have much of a choice.