Colts are doing a smart job of blitzing to Lewis's protection, keeping him in the backfield. With half the Patriots O-Line hurt, Brady isnt going to have the time to wait for Lewis to chip and wheel open. Its a game planning issue to neutralize the back out of the backfield in the passing game.
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Dion Lewis (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter ex-ghost
- Start date
VaTerp
Footballguy
Pipes
Footballguy
duaneok66
Footballguy
Wise Old Owl
Footballguy
Yeah hes in there. The have just featured Edelman and Amendola heavily. BB must like the mismatch they get from them. Gronk doesnt have a catch with only 1 target.
Blount only has 6 carries just 1 happened to be a 38yd TD. Maybe he read all you guys talking about how much they were going to run and BB decided to do the opposite.
Blount only has 6 carries just 1 happened to be a 38yd TD. Maybe he read all you guys talking about how much they were going to run and BB decided to do the opposite.
Wise Old Owl
Footballguy
Yeah first play after half: empty backfield, 5 wide and short pass to Amendola.
kittenmittens
Footballguy
6 isn't a bad floor... AP had 6 today too.
SameSongNDance
Footballguy
It's not so much the point total as it is his usage floor. I could point to AP or Bell having sub-par days but they each touched the ball 25 times today.
ConnSKINS26
Footballguy
Glad I started Blount too, but I still expected more from Lewis. I guess he is mortal.
skol asylum
Footballguy
To my bench for McCoy next week. Which means he'll go off.
ConnSKINS26
Footballguy
I can see wanting to get McCoy in your lineup, but I think benching Lewis ever is short-sighted
SameSongNDance
Footballguy
I think I'm going to take this opportunity to try and buy Lewis again in the leagues I don't own him.
Lewis has a usage floor, too, it's just a different kind of usage floor. Lewis played 69% of the snaps in the first half, 62% through the early parts of the 4th quarter. He got his 6 targets, which are the lifeblood of his PPR value. As mentioned in the thread, those targets are the fantasy equivalent of many more carries. Think of each target as three carries each, and that's 22 "touches" worth of usage in PPR leagues. He just didn't do much with it tonight.
I feel like if you promised me Dion Lewis would be playing 60+% of the snaps and pulling in 6+ targets a game, I'd start him every game in PPR. That's a recipe for 10+ points a game from receiving alone. In standard, for sure, games like this are killers. Which is why he's more in the low-RB1 / high-RB2 range in standard, vs. the solid-RB1 range in PPR.
skol asylum
Footballguy
Well, it's a gamble because only 2 of Foster, McCoy, Lewis, and Latavius can suit up each week. And Foster is a guy I have a hard time benching when healthy.
Shutout
Footballguy
That's a good perspective. So many people out crying and whining about how guys aren't putting up 25 every week (and I get it. I hate watching a guy like Lacy or Cooks be pedestrian while some guys like Freeman and Hopkins and even Steve Smith seem to roll up big numbers no matter what) but it just happens.
hAntonio Brown is killing his fantasy teams. Eddie, CJ Anderson, dozens others. The consistency isn't there.
But with Lewis, this was just how the game script went and it wasn't a surprise at all to many. Honestly, if Gronk doesn't get that ONE pass for the TD tonight, he scores about 4.5 points this week. It's only because Lewis is in the role that he is that we over analyze it.
pyite76
Footballguy
This is the correct answer here. As a Lewis owner, if anyone can figure out the man in the hoodie, please let me know when I should bench Lewis?
kthxbye
Shutout
Footballguy
Which is actually GOOD for Lewis. Nobody scores when they don't play. I worry more about the back that gets 25 touches and comes up with 6 than I do the guy that gets 8 touches and comes up with 6.
Dr. Octopus
Footballguy
That's not really what happened though. Sure looking at the stat sheet that's what appeared to have happened but Blount broke of a long run for a TD and caught his first ever TD pass. Lewis out-snapped him by far but was often forced to block and just couldn't break one. It happens. People need to pump the brakes a bit - both ways, good and bad.
Pipes
Footballguy
The Jets have a solid run defense and an even better pass defense so that seems to me Lewis is the play next week with a lot of dump offs to him. Just a guess though.
Since Blount came back in standard scoring leagues:
Blount - 26, 7, 22
Lewis - 12, 14, 3
As a Blount owner I'm looking at him as a boom/bust RB2 moving forward. Still not sure what to think about Lewis in standard.
Coming off a few monster weeks, I'm trying to move him as I'm not interested in trying to figure out BB's backfield plans every week...
Blount - 26, 7, 22
Lewis - 12, 14, 3
As a Blount owner I'm looking at him as a boom/bust RB2 moving forward. Still not sure what to think about Lewis in standard.
Coming off a few monster weeks, I'm trying to move him as I'm not interested in trying to figure out BB's backfield plans every week...
tankfrank11
Footballguy
I wouldn't try and move either rb. I'd rather have a 20% chance of scoring a TD on a team that scores 5 a game vs a 40% chace on a team that scores 2 a game.
JoeyJoJoJuniorShabadoo
Footballguy
Nothing better than being the Lewis owner going up against the Blount owner with the game on the line 
shadyridr
Footballguy
yep that was brutalNothing better than being the Lewis owner going up against the Blount owner with the game on the line
But yesterday wasn't a "Blount game". Belichick didn't favor his power back. Dion Lewis was used in exactly the same way in his dud against Indianapolis as he was used in his other four great games to start the season. He played 60-70% of New England's snaps until the game was out of reach, finished third on the team in targets with six, and ran the ball on 10-20% of his snaps. That's pretty much been his season in a nutshell. It's just that this week it didn't work and the other weeks it did.pyite76 said:
Blount balled out on his limited snaps. The team ran 60+% of the time when he was on the field, just like they have been doing for weeks. He took one of his six first-half carries 38 yards for a touchdown. He caught his second pass of the entire season, (on his second target of the entire season), on a play where everyone else was covered, Tom Brady scrambled around to buy time, and eventually found Blount as his fourth or fifth read for a touchdown.
That doesn't mean it was a "Blount game", any more than this was a "Jeremy Hill game". Hill, like Blount, was just the lesser part of a relatively liberal rotation who happened to make the most of his opportunities.
I mean, I feel like at this point we know exactly who Lewis and Blount are. Lewis is the guy who is going to be getting 60-70% of the snaps until his team enters "run out the clock" mode. He's going to be among the team leaders in targets and a very safe bet for 6+ a game. He's going to get a carry on perhaps 20% of his snaps, and spend a lot of his time split out wide.
Blount is the guy who will come in as a change of pace, registering around a third of New England's snaps while the game is still in doubt. He's going to get a carry on 60-70% of his snaps, and he's probably going to do pretty well with them, because New England's rushing offense is really good, (and has been for quite a while). And then, when the game is out of reach for the other team, Blount is going to spend most of the 4th quarter taking handoffs to run down the rest of the clock.
This week didn't mark the slightest bit of deviation from that formula. Both backs were who they were. Blount was just a lot more productive in his role.
RealReactions
Footballguy
I tried to tell you guys lower expectations this week 
Insein
Footballguy
But you didn't capitalize the first letters when you did. So we didn't think you were serious.I tried to tell you guys lower expectations this week
I'm not worried about Lewis. Usage indicates that he'll have a great shot to bounce back. It was always going to be a hard game for him. He needed to out up fantasy points early or he wasn't going to put up any. We all thought the game would get out of hand and then it's Blount time.
I think the pats will go back to the tape and adjust their game plan going forward. They obviously trust Lewis to block but I think they'll make a concerted effort to get him more involved. Until that big Blount run, the pats had nothing on the ground and it showed in how hard the pass rush was. They'll address it.
Ppr, Lewis still looks like a low rb1 to me. You probably got him off the wire just like I did so let's stay positive about him. Standard, reliable rb2.
I think the pats will go back to the tape and adjust their game plan going forward. They obviously trust Lewis to block but I think they'll make a concerted effort to get him more involved. Until that big Blount run, the pats had nothing on the ground and it showed in how hard the pass rush was. They'll address it.
Ppr, Lewis still looks like a low rb1 to me. You probably got him off the wire just like I did so let's stay positive about him. Standard, reliable rb2.
BlueDredSo
Footballguy
Right. I'm not that worried about this game. It did suck that I could've really used a good game from him this week, but it happens and I don't expect many more games to go like this for him. Not sure if he took himself out or what, but I'd think 90% of the time Lewis gets that 2nd TD Blount scored.
Dr. Octopus
Footballguy
Dammit I missed that post. It would have been better if I knew to lower my expectations before the game started.I tried to tell you guys lower expectations this week
Dr. Octopus
Footballguy
Stompin' Tom Connors
Footballguy
Hope that was the case. Like many others, love to see Lewis still being involved heavily in snaps and targets. Problem was his output, and his 50% target-to-catch ratio, as well as reception yardage, was a step change from all games previously. His YPC was still a healthy 5.25, but again the lowest amount of carries by a good margin, even if the situation/script called for more usage of Blount.
Everyone has an off-day; hoping that it was simply that, and that the way BB and NE uses Lewis doesn't change. No reason to think it will, but always something that you think about when you see Blount being effective both on the ground and in a scoring passing situation.
Pipes
Footballguy
Saying it was a "Blount game" was probably a poor choice of words. However Blount is more than an after thought in this offense like many posters were implying after Lewis' hot start. In PPR in doesn't appear to make as much of a difference but in a standard league Lewis isn't nearly as intriguing. The nice thing though is the amount the Pats pass seems to indicate these snap count percentages will continue to hold true.
Agreed on all counts.Pipes said:
