We’ve been harping on this since the pre-season with a couple of specific articles in the draft guide and mentioned it in several more throughout the rest of the pre-season. Red Zone targets, passing, rushing attempts, and defense are all highly important things to focus on from a fantasy perspective so that we can see where the scoring is coming from on a weekly basis. We already know how many touchdowns are scored inside the 20 in the games so let’s look at who’s getting those chances and how the defenses are behaving in the Red Zone.
Passing Attempts
Patrick Mahomes , QB KC – Mahomes picked up right where he left off as the reigning league MVP with 10 Red Zone attempts in the first week as they hung 40 points on the Jaguars in Week 1. He targeted six different receivers in those 10 attempts while completing six of them for 28 yards and a touchdown. Mahomes was brilliant in the Red Zone last year with 35 touchdowns and just one pick over 100 attempts. There is no reason to think he can’t keep that kind of efficiency up again this year as he completed 60-percent of the attempts in Week 1.
Jacoby Brissett , QB IND – Much talk came about how Brissett would do as the full-time starter for the Colts this year and he began to answer the questions in Week 1 with a solid overall game and nice showing in the Red Zone against the Chargers. He had seven Red Zone attempts with four completions and two touchdowns on Sunday as he fully took the reins of the Colts offense. Five separate receivers were targeted by the signal-caller including three going to T.Y. Hilton . Brissett looks to have a great grasp on the system and a good connection with his weapons, including both tight ends with Eric Ebron having a touchdown called back on a penalty.
Gardner Minshew, QB CAR – Minshew wasn’t supposed to play on Sunday, in fact, most people outside of Jacksonville probably didn’t even know his name. Minshew came in when Nick Foles left with a broken collar bone and played very well overall including going a perfect 4-for-4 in the Red Zone with a touchdown as well. He will be the signal-caller going forward as Foles is likely done for the year and with how good he looked in a pinch, the Red Zone chances should be able to keep coming for him, but it’s likely a bit downhill going forward.
Rushing Attempts
Josh Jacobs , RB OAK – Jacobs was drafted to be the lead back for the Oakland running game, which has been lacking for a couple of years now, and the release of Antonio Brown sure helped open up some work for him as well. He got off to a fast start in his career with eight Red Zone carries for 24 yards and two scores, both coming inside the five. Jacobs will continue to be the lead back and seeing him get that much work in Week 1 is certainly a confidence booster for his owners.
Gus Edwards , RB BAL – The Ravens offense made a bunch of headlines on Sunday with the drubbing they gave to the Dolphins beating them to 59-10. While Lamar Jackson and Marquise Brown stole the headlines, and Mark Ingram did as well with five carries and two scores in the Red Zone, Edwards actually saw more carries than Ingram. Edwards saw seven carries for 19 yards inside the 20 with four inside the 10 and three inside the five. Ingram was more productive to be sure but it was interesting to see him get outpaced in the carries department.
Malcolm Brown , RB LAR – Todd Gurley has been the talk of Rams camp, well his arthritic knee anyway. Head Coach Sean McVay said heading into Week 1 that Gurley would get all the work he ordinarily would which gave owners hope that their second or third-round pick would be even more valuable. But then the game played out, and it was Brown, not Gurley, that saw the work by the goal line. He had five carries for 21 yards and two scores on the day inside the 20 which makes him a valuable handcuff to Gurley.
Damien Williams , RB KC – The signing of LeSean McCoy and the drafting of Darwin Thompson muddied the waters for Williams, as did the quotes from Head Coach Andy Reid about using a running back by committee approach. However, when it was time for Week 1, the game plan played out the way we all thought it would in the preseason. Williams toted the rock the most of any Chiefs running back with four carries. Those carries resulted in nine yards and a score, two of those carries were inside the 10 as was the touchdown. Shady McCoy did get his fair share of carries, just not inside the 20.
Receiving Targets
T.Y. Hilton , WR IND – With Andrew Luck ’s retirement came concerns about Hilton’s viability this year in the fantasy football realm. Some of those concerns were laid to rest on Sunday in L.A. against the Chargers as he had two touchdowns on the day with both coming in the Red Zone on three targets and three catches. The connection with Jacoby Brissett has been growing all offseason as Luck hadn’t been running first team reps in camp or mini camps. Hilton should be just fine heading forward but does have a decently tough match-up in Week 2 against Tennessee.
Le’Veon Bell, RB NYJ – The first week back in an NFL uniform in about a year saw Bell doing what he did for the Steelers, being a bell cow back in the rushing and receiving games. The running back saw two targets and caught both of them including one for a score. Those two targets were 66.7-percent of the Jets Red Zone passes against the Bills. Despite all of the bluster in the offseason from his Head Coach Adam Gase about how he didn’t want Bell in the first place, they still gave him the ball a ton on Sunday and that should again be the case against the Browns in Week 2 with Sam Darnold out with Mono.
Travis Kelce , TE KC – It was a relatively quiet day for Kelce who had three catches for 88 yards overall, one of which was a 44-yard completion. That stat line belies his true day though. He had four targets in the Red Zone, which already leads the NFL after Week 1. He accounted for four targets of the 11 total by Chiefs QBs against the Jaguars, though he didn’t catch any of those looks as the Jaguars had him as a marked man. So while the stat line didn’t look all that dominating, he did still have several looks at pay dirt.
Emmanuel Sanders , WR DEN – Sanders is coming off a torn Achilles in the middle of last year and made a remarkably quick recovery to be on the field for Week 1. There’s also a new Head Coach, new system, and new Quarterback to get used to in Denver since last year. He was targeted three times in the first game, despite a slow start from the Broncos offense, and caught two of those targets including a score. He is clearly still the top target in the passing game ahead of Courtland Sutton , Hamilton, and Noah Fant, and seeing him get the early Red Zone looks cements that standing too.
Red Zone Defense
*All 32 NFL teams are listed here with RZ Att representing how many opposing drives they allowed to reach the 20, RZ TDs being the amount of opposing touchdowns they allowed, and RZ% being the scoring percentage allowed.
Green Bay Packers – Bears-Packers is one of the great rivalries in football and the NFL used it to start the 100th season on Thursday night. The whole defensive unit looked great against the Bears and an offense that was supposed to take steps forward after last year and with some new weapons as well. Chicago only sniffed the Red Zone once and the Bears failed to score in that chance. There are six new starters on the new defense for the Packers and we’ll see if it was adrenaline on Thursday or if they are that good against the Vikings in Week 2.
San Francisco 49ers – The Niners were a unit that was much maligned in the offseason and was thought to be one of the worst in the league. Heading into a match-up with a hyped-up offense like Tampa Bay, it was heading for a shootout most believed. The San Francisco unit held strong in the Red Zone, however, as they allowed just one score in the four trips Tampa Bay had. Now there are some lingering questions about Tampa’s offense, however not allowing a unit featuring Mike Evans , O.J. Howard , Chris Godwin , and Bruce Arians scheme to score more than once is a solid outing.
Seattle Seahawks – The Legion of Boom is no longer there and heading into the season they were thought to be a lackluster unit. The first game they didn’t show very well giving up a ton of yardage to the Bengals but in the spot on the field that it mattered the most, they held strong. The Bengals had three chances inside the 20-yard line but failed to punch it in the endzone once. That’s a good sign that when the field got short, they stopped them, however they still need to tighten things up in the rest of the 80 yards of the field.