Falcons fantasy stud and dud from Week 7 vs. Buccaneers

The Falcons have a clear turnover problem at the moment. It’s gotten maddening for the fanbase and no doubt the coaching staff, as well. Something is working — the team has accumulated over 400 total yards in three straight weeks — but sloppy errors and turnovers have seen them score just 21, 16 and 16 over that time frame of games.

High yardage but a lack of end zone trips is both good and bad for fantasy purposes. Desmond Ridder was the only Falcon to reach the end zone, as you were likely left disappointed if you started most of the Falcons’ offensive players and likely satisfied if you looked at the defense and special teams.

The Birds are still figuring it out, but things don’t seem as dire as they were in weeks 3-4 against the Lions and Jaguars. It feels like something is close to clicking and turning this offense into something of a force (if the turnovers can be cleaned up), and that will be very good news for fantasy owners.

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 is Atlanta’s fantasy stud and fantasy dud from Week 7’s victory against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Fantasy Stud/Dud 2023 History:

Past Studs: Bijan Robinson (2), Tyler Allgeier (1), Kyle Pitts (1), Desmond Ridder (1), Drake London (1)

Past Duds: Drake London (2), Kyle Pitts (2), Tyler Allgeier (1), Younghoe Koo (1)

Fantasy Stud - Younghoe Koo

Stat Line: 1/1 XP; 3/3 FG (1 20-29, 1 40-49, 1 50+): 13.0 standard league/PPR points

The volatility of a fantasy kicker has been on full display with Younghoe Koo over the past two weeks — he nailed all of his attempts in that time period, but last week was featured in our “dud” column while being highlighted as this week’s standout. Kickers are only a valuable as the opportunity they get to produce, and this week the Georgia Southern alum received plenty of it.

Koo finally had the breakout game that fantasy owners have been hoping for following a number of disappointing weeks in a row. The Falcons saw drives stall out in or around the red zone twice to give Koo a solid day, and then that day turned great for both the kicker and the football team when the offense orchestrated a final drive to set up a game winning 51-yard field goal.

Koo deserves a lot of credit for his clutch gene, now adding a third game winning kick of the season under his belt, this one the longest distance out of all of them. Koo may have had an even better day had the Falcons not fumbled from inside the 10-yard-line on three separate occasions.

With the Falcons moving the ball as much as they recently, you figure that Koo should get some more opportunity in the coming weeks if this continues.

Dud

Bijan Robinson: 1 carry, 3 yards: 0.3 standard league/PPR points

It was really weird when the first drive passed and Atlanta’s all-world rookie Bijan Robinson was nowhere to be seen. Then when the second drive passed and we continued seeing a full dose of Tyler Allgeier and Cordarrelle Patterson at running back. Eventually the entire first half passed with Robinson not seeing a single touch despite being active and in full uniform on the sideline.

We received a halftime report that Bijan was being held out because he wasn’t feeling well, and this understandably incensed fantasy owners all across the internet as we did not receive any word about this leading up to the game.

Robinson eventually got one touch late for three yards, but fantasy owners with the elite rookie in their lineup were left absolutely perplexed. This sort of felt like the latest shot in Arthur Smith’s war against fantasy football.

I would not expect this to be a recurring issue for Bijan, who can continue to be fired up as an elite RB1 moving forward. If you had him on your team this week, you sort of have to just throw your hands up, as nobody saw this coming.