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Instant Fantasy Football Pickups from Patriots-Jets Thursday Night Football
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Instant Fantasy Football Pickups from Patriots-Jets Thursday Night Football

• Braelon Allen leads the New York Jets in rushing yards: For the second week in a row, the rookie running back from Wisconsin played key moments and made an impressive impression.

• Jets distribute the ball: Eight different Jets players caught multiple passes for double-digit yards.

• Discover your advantage with a PFF+ subscription: Get full access to all of our fantasy tools in the season, including weekly rankings, WR/CB Matchup Charts, weekly projectionsthe Start-Sit-optimizer and more. Sign up now!

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

PFF’s fantasy football summary focuses on player usage and stats, and contains all the essential information you need to succeed in fantasy in 2024.


New England Patriots @ New York Jets

Braelon Allen keeps mixing: Midway through the third quarter, Allen set a new personal record for touches.

Allen surprised many last week with his seven carries for 33 yards and a touchdown, while catching two passes for 23 yards and another touchdown. Last week, he was used specifically in the middle of the game. Hall played all 12 snaps on the first three drives. The two split snaps over the next five drives at 18 each, which included four plays with both players on the field. Hall then closed out the game playing 11 of the final 13 snaps.

This week, Allen stepped up his game. He started the second drive and consistently played a few snaps on every drive outside of the first. Allen touched the ball nearly half the time he was on the field in Week 2, and instead of dropping off, he increased that amount this week. Late in the third quarter, fellow rookie Isaiah Davis made his debut in attack and joined the rotation in the outburst.

Allen is starting to look like he could have some standalone value in games where the Jets are clear favorites. It wouldn’t be surprising if Breece Hall would dominate the snaps in a more competitive game. Allen’s emergence has put a ceiling on Hall’s fantasy potential. Ideally, Hall would have had 20 or more carries for 100+ yards to go along with his receptions in a game like this, but that didn’t happen with the rookie running backs playing more. Hall will still be a clear must-start player each week, even if his ceiling is slightly lower.

Mike Williams Snaps take a step back: Williams was in the rotation for the third wide receiver position after solidifying that role in Week 2.

Williams played just nine offensive snaps in Week 1, which wasn’t a concern considering he was coming back from a torn ACL. He was on the injury report for Weeks 1 and 2 with the knee injury.

In week 2 that rose to 37 snaps, while Xavier Gipson played only six. Williams played 29 of a possible 34 snaps in three-receiver sets and eight of 21 in two-receiver sets. He was off the injury report this week, so it appeared he was good to go.

Instead, he was rotated with Gipson in three-receiver sets. Although he lost a lot of playing time in three-receiver sets, he started to break even with Allen Lazard in two-receiver sets. He caught three passes for 34 yards and was the target of two end zone passes that both ended incomplete, including one that was eventually reversed on a penalty, so it doesn’t appear on the stat sheet.

It’s certainly possible that a short week explains why Williams was limited, or that the Jets simply want Gipson to get more opportunities on offense. Williams’ end-zone targets are encouraging, but he still isn’t in a position where we could consider him a starter.

Antonio Gibson shone in the garbage time: Gibson was largely gone until the end of the game

Gibson played just seven offensive snaps in the first 50 minutes of the game. All of his work came on the third drive or when the team trailed by three touchdowns in the final 10 minutes. Much of this had to do with game script. Most of the time Gibson was on the field last week, the Patriots were on longer drives.

Rhamondre Stevenson played in 53 of a possible 63 snaps on the first three plays of drives in the first two weeks. The biggest difference this week is that most of the Patriots’ drives lasted no longer than three plays. Gibson consistently got the ball in the final few minutes of the game, resulting in Gibson leading the team in rushing yards and catching the third-most passes. All of this means that Stevenson remains the Patriots’ clear-cut lead running back. That’s been the case in all three games, and Gibson’s strong performance last week didn’t change that.

It’s still fine to keep Gibson as a handcuff for Stevenson, but it’s unlikely Gibson will be valuable in his own right this season unless the Patriots’ offense gets a lot better.

Various comments

  • While Tyler Conklin played his best game of the season, his role in attack did not change. He is comparable to Hunter Henrywho had a great game last week and barely did anything this week. They’re both tight ends who run a lot of routes and will have a few good weeks throughout the season, but they’re not focused enough to trust in fantasy starting lineups. They’re fine bye-week fill-ins.
  • The Patriots kept six wide receivers active for this game after keeping five in the first two games. That means both Javon Bakker And Kayshon Boutte were active.
  • New England’s wide receiver rotation looked very similar to last week. Ja’Lynn Polk, KJ Osborn And Tyquan Thornton turned on the outside while DeMario Douglas combined for sets of three receivers.
  • The Patriots’ snap counts will appear skewed because their longest drive was their final drive, which featured mostly reserves. Kayshon Boutte got the bulk of the work on that 16-play drive, and Thornton didn’t play at all, which is why Thornton’s snaps were so much lower than those of the other Patriots receivers. Likewise, Austin Hooper more routes ridden than Henry on that ride.
  • Jets fourth running back, Israel Abanikanda, has been inactive every week.
  • The Jets played tight ends in three sets more often in the first half than they did in the first two games combined.
  • New York’s third-round rookie wide receiver Malachi Corley played one offensive snap in each of the first two games and did not play a single snap on offense in this game despite the upset win.

Table notes
  • Snaps include plays that are called back due to penalties, including offensive holding or defensive pass interference. The other three metrics have these plays removed.
  • Targets may differ from official NFL sources. The most likely discrepancy would come from an obvious discarded pass, where the NFL can give the target to the nearest receiver, while this data does not.
  • Carry’s are on designed plays only. Quarterback scrambles do not count towards the total number of carries in the game.