We are over a third of the way through the fantasy football regular season, meaning things are finally starting to normalize for some teams. Other teams are making drastic changes after seeing things fail to pan out over the first month of the year. These are the 10 storylines you need to know headed into Week 6.
Bengals’ offensive changes
All offseason we were beaten over the head with reports of the Bengals playing under center more. True to their word, Cincy went from running 8 percent of their passing plays and 37 percent of their run plays under center in 2025, to 11 and 61 percent over the first four weeks of 2026. Did it work? Of course not. Their ground game took a massive hit. The Bengals were one of the very few teams to average a positive EPA per play on under-center carries in 2025. That fell below zero this year, but they are running under center more now. This means they took an occasional advantage and turned it into a much more frequent disadvantage. Their EPA per play from under-center passes was near league bottom last year and only moved up marginally over the first month of the season, though they again leaned into that disadvantage more often. Zac Taylor threw in the towel on Sunday.
The under-center passing rate held constant, but the under-center runs vanished, dropping to 32 percent. That rate is even lower than what Taylor dialed up in 2025. The rushing efficiency didn’t change, but Cincy’s passing output exploded as Burrow posted his first four-touchdown day of the season. The Bengals also shifted to a full-blown committee in the backfield, with Samaje Perine seeing 14 carries to Chase Brown’s 13. The Athletic’s Paul Dehner Jr. pointed out that Perine is a better stylistic fit for shotgun carries. He’s right (maybe). Since Perine rejoined the Bengals last year, he’s averaging 4.5 YPC and 3.1 YAC per carry on shotgun and pistol attempts. Brown is at 3.9 and 2.6. However, Brown holds the advantage in both of those stats when Cincy moves under center. There’s likely some selection bias happening here, but the Bengals’ carry split in Week 5 suggests the team agrees with the stats.
What to make of Marvin Harrison Jr.
The Texans sent a second-round pick and made a Day 3 swap to save Marvin Harrison Jr. from Arizona. MHJ’s efficiency and raw production have both fallen in each of the past two years, to the point where he was not even a remotely relevant fantasy option through four weeks of the 2026 season. Given the price they paid, the Texans are betting that Arizona mismanaged and failed to develop a truly elite prospect. Is there any precedent for a player this bad through three seasons turning into a high-end NFL producer? Not really.
Since 2015, 24 first-round receivers have averaged fewer than 1.6 yards per route through three seasons. Not a single one of them has produced a 1,000 yard season at any point in their careers, though a few still have an outside chance at doing so. On the other hand, the 1.6-1.8 range contains nine players, six of whom hit the 1,000-yard mark after their third season. Garrett Wilson will likely make it seven this year and has already done so multiple times. The most useful point I can extract from this is that we know pretty early in a player’s career if they just aren’t that good. We also know when players are true superstars right away. Everything in the middle is fuzzy. MHJ is teetering on the edge of bad and mediocre. If he shows any signs of life in Houston, I’ll believe that Marv could develop into a productive NFL wideout. Given his struggles so far, I don’t necessarily expect that to happen.
Drake Maye is the most back a player has ever been
I promise I will stop writing about Drake Maye at some point. This is not that week. Two weeks ago I wrote about how Maye was making egregious mistakes at a league-leading rate, all while being unable to hit a big play to save his life. Over the past two weeks, he has been the exact opposite player. The change in his rate of negative plays is stunning.
The biggest thing to note here is that a quarterback’s stats when pressured are fluky, and the above table features pressure stats both directly and indirectly no matter where you look. Maye was a great quarterback when pressured during the regular season last year. He was nearly the worst quarterback under pressure in the postseason. Now we’ve seen both sides of the coin in just the first five weeks of the year. Maye will probably play another stretch of bad football at some point, because he’s being pressured at the ninth-highest rate. The much more encouraging part of his turnaround has been his production from a clean pocket.
Maye averaged 7.7 YPA with one touchdown and three interceptions from a clean pocket over the first three weeks. Only Cooper Rush had more picks from a clean pocket. He then skyrocketed to 10.8 YPA with four scores and one interception from a clean pocket over the past two games. That data is much more stable, and it’s an area where Maye was elite in 2025.
Jameis Winston is doing Jameis Winston things
Oh yeah, he’s back. Over the past two weeks, Jameis Winston has the fourth-highest aDOT in the NFL and the Giants have a -1% pass rate over expected.
They’re not airing it out by choice, but they aren’t hiding Winston either. The team had a -19% PROE in his first start. Not only is Winston slinging it, he looks good, per the spreadsheets. He is eighth in EPA per play over the last two weeks and 15th in completion percent over expected. In Winston’s three starts, Malik Nabers has a 31 percent target share and Isaiah Likely is just behind him at 30 percent. Winston is playing well and knows who to get the ball to. This is a dream setup for fantasy managers.
Ashton Jeanty continues to struggle
Things are starting to look bleak for the former No. 4 overall pick. Ashton Jeanty currently ranks 31st in both rush yards over expected per carry (-.17) and yards after contact per attempt (2.7). He is averaging 3.5 yards per carry through 1.5 seasons. That is the worst mark for a first-round running back through two seasons since 2015. The players directly above him on the list are Jeremiyah Love, Leonard Fournette, Melvin Gordon, and Najee Harris.
On the other hand, his advanced numbers remain solid. There have been 18 first-round running backs since 2015. Through two seasons, he ranks seventh in missed tackles forced per carry (.2) and ninth in yards after contact per attempt (3.0). His biggest issues have come behind the line of scrimmage. Jeanty is last among that group in yards before contact (.6) and has the highest stuff rate (26.2 percent). The hope is that Jeanty is similar to Saquon Barkley, who thrives when his line opens up lanes but is hurt more than most running backs by bad play in the trenches. The downside is that it’s hard to see how things get better in the middle of the season.
Tyler Shough scam runs dry
Tyler Shough had been operating an incredible, volume-based fantasy scam for a month, but Brian Flores and the Minnesota defense finally put an end to that by holding Shough under 100 passing yards. He was intercepted twice and did not find the end zone. Shough finished as a top-eight fantasy quarterback in each of his first three appearances. That fell to QB15 in Week 4 and QB31 in Week 5. Only 30 quarterbacks started in Week 5, so one QB began Sunday as a backup, got on the field midgame, and still outscored Shough. Shough has not been all that impressive this year. PFF has charted him with the 16th-best accurate throw rate and his CPOE ranks similarly. By EPA per play Shough is just the QB22, putting him behind Deshaun Watson and Jameis Winston. The fantasy production has been built purely on volume. Shough currently leads the league in dropbacks. Kellen Moore’s obsession with pace, plus a slight tilt toward the pass, have been the drivers of that volume. At 1-4, Moore’s job, and with it the absurd passing volume, are clearly at risk.
Gayle Benson spoke at the GNO QB Club today. She said she wanted to address the team's 1-4 record and said "that is not acceptable to me." She said the responsibility starts with her. "I will not make excuses and I will not accept this level of performance as our standard."
— Katherine Terrell (@Kat_Terrell) October 13, 2026
Shough strikes me as a potential sell-high in redraft and a very clear sell in dynasty.
Is it time to bench Cam Ward?
I’m not sure what the Titans would gain long-term by benching Ward. If they do, it’s back to the QB well in the offseason. Doing so might also put Robert Saleh’s job at risk after just one year. On the other hand, it almost can’t get worse. Since 2020, Ward is second-to-last in EPA per play (min. 500 plays). Only Zach Wilson has been worse.
Titans’ drives have ended in a score just 23.6 percent of the time. That is the seventh-lowest rate of the past decade, which is even worse than it sounds, given that the new kickoff rules and kicker ranges becoming much longer make scoring significantly easier in 2026. Their 24:31 average time of possession is easily the worst mark of the past 20 years. The same is true of their 54.6 plays per game, though league trends are working against them in that stat.
Mitch Trubisky would be the choice to replace Ward. In his post-Bears era, Trubisky is averaging .06 EPA per play with a +1.4 completion percent over expected. Ward is at -.12 and -1.9. The switch to Trubisky would almost certainly be a short-term win.
One of the many reasons the Eagles are bad
It’s easy to get lost in the minutiae of why the Eagles are struggling. Last week I talked about them from a 10,000-foot view. They get bottled up on early downs and Jalen Hurts has never been good in obvious passing situations, making their late downs even more painful. Now I’m free to get lost in the minutiae: Their screen game is catastrophic.
The Eagles “screen game” is one of the worst in the history of the NFL.
— Eagles Eric (@EaglesXsandOs) October 11, 2026
Additionally, if you look at all plays where the pass was at line of scrimmage or behind, they are ranked 4th worst out of 641 teams since 2005 (includes swings, dump offs, etc). https://t.co/N9QNLMxYnt pic.twitter.com/ELDnvLTpVw
This chart undersells it. The Eagles are averaging the third-worst EPA per screen (-.74) since 2010. This might not sound that bad because screens aren’t all that common. For most teams that are terrible at screens, you’d be right. The Eagles aren’t most teams, and Sean Mannion isn’t most play-callers. Philly is using their awful screen game often enough that they are dead last in total EPA per game (-2.8) generated via screens since 2010. That’s nearly a field goal per game.
The Eagles are also last in YAC (5.0) per catch on screens since 2010. They do not have a missed tackle forced on a screen this year. Even worse, their average target depth on screens is last since 2010 (4.9). Thus far, the Eagles have been better off having their screen plays fall incomplete than having the receiver actually catch the pass.
Mannion seems to think Makai Lemon is a gadget player who needs to be designed gimmick targets. He was not that player in college, nor did he appear to have that in his bag. Lemon ranked 86th in YAC per catch on screen targets in 2025. It was maybe the one thing he was never good at. In the NFL, he is averaging -3.7 YAC per catch on screens. This is a comedy of errors, all of which are self-inflicted.
What’s going on with Bo Nix?
Jalen Hurts stole the spotlight from Bo Nix in the middle of the field discourse this summer. We shouldn’t have slept on Nix. The Broncos were last in the NFL in middle-of-field (MoF) throw rate last year. They are last again this year. Unlike Nix, Hurts had been extremely successful when throwing to the middle of the field. The problem was that he rarely chose to do it. Nix neither throws well or often over the middle.
Since the start of last year, Nix is worse than the league average when throwing to the outside, but only by a slight margin. He experiences almost no efficiency gains when throwing to the middle, which is in stark contrast to the other 31 teams, who almost universally benefit from the MoF.
This has been absolutely gutting for Jaylen Waddle. During his five years in Miami, Waddle ranked third among all wide receivers in yards on MoF throws and seventh in targets. He was one of the very best wide receivers over the middle. Waddle currently has two catches in the middle of the field. Two.
Puka Nacua goes off
Nacua was the entirety of the Rams’ offense in Week 5, racking up 17 catches for 138 yards and one touchdown, plus nine rushing yards on two carries. Since he entered the NFL, Nacua is one of just two wideouts with multiple games of 15+ receptions. Ja’Marr Chase has two such games while CeeDee Lamb, Michael Wilson, and Keenan Allen each have one. Nacua’s role has evolved this year. His slot rate is at a career-low 24 percent and his aDOT is up to 10, which is a career high. This might be a more permanent fixture of his game going forward.
Davante Adams remains a great goal line weapon, but his ability to separate downfield is waning. He converted 55 percent of his air yards last year. That was the seventh-worst mark among 49 wideouts with at least 70 targets. His RACR is up to 66 percent this year, but that’s still the 11th-worst mark among 42 qualified wideouts. Getting more out of Puka as a deep threat makes sense for a team that openly admitted to trying to move on from Adams during the offseason.
