NFL Week 9 Fantasy Football Recap: Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Los Angeles Rams

• Cooper Kupp: 8 receptions, 127 yards, 1 touchdown

• Cade Otton: 5 receptions, 68 yards, 1 touchdown

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The Rams' evolving running back room: All of the Rams' running backs played a different role this week compared to last, and that could change again next week.

Darrell Henderson split time on early downs last week, taking nearly all of the passing-down snaps in the process. He lost nearly all of the passing work this week but played a higher percentage of early-down snaps.
Malcolm Brown played a few snaps on early downs and was the short-yardage back a week ago. He took nearly all of the receiving snaps this week.
Ronnie Rivers was the backup on early downs last week. He was active but didn’t play on offense.
Cam Akers returned to the Rams after the team failed to trade him. He was the backup on early downs and played in short-yardage situations.
Kyren Williams returned to practice over a week ago and will ideally be ready to join the active roster before the Rams' next game. He could realistically take time from any of the three backs.
It’s worth having Henderson, Akers and Williams on fantasy rosters, but none of them should be in your starting lineup. One of them could gain and keep the early-down role, which could make them a fantasy starter.

Van Jefferson’s decrease in playing time: Jefferson returned to the Rams lineup last week and was on a pitch count. His playing time went down instead of up in his second game back.

He didn’t catch any of the five passes thrown his way.
One of those passes was dropped, but his average depth of target was 27.0 yards. It’s difficult to catch passes when they are always that deep.
No receiver outside of Cooper Kupp was a major part of the passing game. Kupp gained over three-quarters of the Rams' passing yardage.
It seems less likely Jefferson will have fantasy value this season, contrary to what we thought at the beginning of the year.

The Buccaneers running back split: Rachaad White ended up with more rushing yards than Leonard Fournette, but that isn’t necessarily a sign of things to come.

Fournette still dominated in the playing time. he might not have taken the field as often as usual, but that was likely due to the number of offensive plays Tampa Bay ran.
He played over 50 offensive snaps for the fourth time this season.
This is Fournette’s third straight game under 25 rushing yards. He’s no longer a must-start each week.
White has constantly been a waiver wire target in case he can take over the starting job, but he hasn’t been any more effective this season.
The Buccaneers have one of the most difficult schedules for running backs over the rest of the season.

Monitor the health of Julio Jones: Jones didn’t practice at the beginning of the week due to a knee injury. He barely played in the second half.

Jones was the clear third wide receiver in the first half, playing in 27 of a possible 40 snaps, including 20 of 25 pass plays.
He played only three snaps in the third quarter, including two of the first three plays of the half and one later in the quarter.
Scotty Miller took over as the team’s third receiver in the second half, with Breshad Perriman also mixing in.
The top two wide receivers remain the clear leaders in targets regardless of who is the third receiver. It’s likely best to avoid the third receiver in Tampa Bay until the offense plays better.

Table Notes

• Snaps include plays called back due to penalties, including offensive holding or defensive pass interference. The other three stats have these plays removed.

• Targets may differ from official NFL sources. The most likely discrepancy would be from a clear thrown-away pass, where the NFL may give the target to the nearest receiver, while this data will not.

• Carries are only on designed plays. Quarterback scrambles won’t count for the total number of carries in the game.