This past week of XFL DFS had it all: $10,000-plus wide receivers busting, a second consecutive three-touchdown week from Cam Phillips and 2.8 fantasy points from the most-owned player on the slate, DeAndre Thompkins.
In this article, I’ll hit on my main takeaways in terms of player usage and do my best to project the situations forward.
For more high-level analysis, check out Matthew Freedman’s team rankings moving into Week 4.
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Los Angeles Wildcats Receivers
The most unexpected fantasy performance of the XFL’s Week 3 DFS slate belonged to Tre McBride, who — at 0.5% ownership in DraftKings’ Saturday Special tournament — posted a 5-109-2 receiving line en route to 30.9 fantasy points. McBride, one of the more familiar names entering the season due to his past NFL experience, was inactive in Week 1 and did not play a single snap in Week 2 before bursting onto the scene Sunday.
Outside of Nelson Spruce, the Wildcats’ receiving corps has been a difficult one to project on a weekly basis through the first three weeks of the season:
- Saeed Blacknall (thigh) played 82 percent of snaps in Week 1 and missed Weeks 2 and 3 with an injury.
- Adonis Jennings led the team in Week 2 air yards but was a box score afterthought in Week 3.
- Jordan Smallwood played 90% of snaps in Week 2, then he became a part-time player in Week 3. The aforementioned McBride went from playing zero snaps in Week 2 to leading the team in every major receiving category in Week 3.
To further complicate matters, McBride was knocked out of Week 3 after taking an illegal hit midway through the third quarter. Though McBride did not return, the game was already out of hand by that point, so it’s possible he was held out as a precaution. McBride’s Week 4 status is unclear.
If McBride and Blacknall are both inactive in Week 4, Jennings, Smallwood, and Kermit Whitfield are candidates to pick up the slack.
Update: Spruce (knee) is reportedly expected to be out this week.
Tampa Bay Vipers Receivers
Speaking of offenses in flux, here are the recent goings-on of the Tampa Bay Vipers offense:
- Ex-New Orleans Saint Seantavius Jones was a healthy scratch in Week 1 and led the Vipers in Week 2 air yards before being waived last Wednesday. The story doesn’t end there, though, as Tampa Bay re-signed Jones on Tuesday (2/25), replacing WR Donteea Dye on its roster.
- Nick Truesdell (knee), selected fifth overall in the XFL skill player draft, was held out in Week 3, and his Week 4 status is currently unclear after he was unable to practice last week. Truesdell logged a 17% target share through the first two games of the season and is a central piece of the Vipers offense when healthy.
- Ex-CFLer S.J. Green posted seven 1,000-plus yard seasons in the CFL. He joined the Vipers via trade last Tuesday but was a healthy scratch in Week 3, presumably because he is not yet familiar enough with the team’s playbook. Two of Green’s 1,000-plus yard seasons came as a member of the Toronto Argonauts under current Vipers head coach Marc Trestman. Green’s role in the Vipers offense moving forward remains a giant question mark and it wouldn’t be shocking to see him featured over the next few weeks.
- The team’s two leading targets this season, Jalen Tolliver and Daniel Williams played 97% and 100% of snaps respectively before dropping down to 66% and 59% in Week 2. The majority of those Week 2 snaps went to Jones and Tanner McEvoy, who combined to play two total snaps in Week 1. Both Tolliver and Williams bounced back to command 100% snap shares in Week 3. However, it’s difficult to project them at that level moving forward with so much uncertainty in Tampa’s offense.
Did I mention that starting QB Aaron Murray (foot) has missed the past two games while the team has awkwardly attempted to platoon Taylor Cornelius and Quinton Flowers at the position? As for what we can expect from this team in Week 4, all I can say is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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St. Louis BattleHawks WR De’Mornay Pierson-El
Returning eight fantasy points on a $10,100 DraftKings salary, Pierson-El has to be considered one of the biggest disappointments of Week 3 from a DFS perspective. While it would be easy to write off Pierson-El’s performance due to a game script that heavily favored the run — the BattleHawks easily defeated the Guardians 29-9 — there are still some reasons to be concerned.
Week 3 marked the second consecutive week that Pierson-El’s snap share decreased. After playing 77% of snaps in Week 1, Pierson-El played 59% in Week 2 and only 33% in Week 3. While that could theoretically be attributed to game script, L’Damian Washington stayed on the field for 94% of snaps despite being listed as questionable with an ankle injury on the BattleHawks’ Week 3 game status report. If Pierson-El — who was by all accounts healthy entering the game — was pulled due to game script, one would think that Washington would have received the same treatment.
Instead, it seems as though the team simply wanted to get Brandon Reilly more involved in the offense. After playing zero snaps in Week 2, Reilly played more snaps — 29 to 21 — than Pierson-El — while receiving the same number of targets (three). This was not a case of Reilly getting garbage time run either — all three of his targets came in the first three quarters of the game. Priced as the WR4 on DraftKings in Week 4, Pierson-El will be a difficult player to trust due to his declining usage.
Houston Roughnecks WR Sammie Coates
Last week, I noted that Coates was losing snap share in Houston’s offense as the team makes more of an effort to feature Nick Holley and Kahlil Lewis. That trend continued into Week 3. Against Tampa Bay, Holley, Lewis, and Cam Phillips all played 92% or more of the team’s snaps, while Coates was relegated to rotational usage along with Sam Mobley and Blake Jackson.
Given Coates’ decreasing involvement in the offense — 48% of snaps played in Week 3 — and inefficiency as a receiver — four receptions on 16 targets in 2020 — he will be difficult to trust in DFS. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he is totally unplayable in GPPs, as long as the deep targets keep coming. On the season, eight of Coates’ 14 targets have come beyond 20 yards downfield per Pro Football Focus, including three such targets in Week 3. As Phillips showed on Saturday, all it takes is a deep target or two in order to have a slate-breaking day when you’re part of the Roughnecks offense.
Pictured: De’Mornay Pierson-El
Credit: Jeff Curry/Getty Images
