10 Fantasy Football Takeaways from Week 3: Is Case Keenum better than Caleb Williams?

· Yahoo Sports

No, next question.

But really, he’s not.

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Okay, here’s why Luther Burden and to a lesser degree Colston Loveland fantasy managers might feel that way.

1) Case Keenum is not better than Caleb Williams

The real difference—strictly for fantasy purposes—between the two quarterbacks is this: Case Keenum leads the NFL in dropback conversion rate. That is the rate of called passing plays that are turned into a target. He does this at a 94 percent clip. Caleb Williams is dead last in the league in DCR at 67 percent. For context, this means that if both quarterbacks dropped back 40 times in a game, Keenum would generate nearly 11 more targets for his pass-catchers. Given Burden’s 26 percent target share, that’s an extra three targets per game for him under Keenum.

Some caveats: I would imagine over the long run that the Bears call more passing play per game with Williams under center, so holding dropbacks constant between the two is likely unfair.

Sidebar: The Bears were shockingly pass-heavy under Keenum, though I don’t buy that as sticky. 

Williams has also thrown deep more often and more accurately this year. Even if Keenum is better for the PPR floors of the pass-catchers, Williams brings the ceiling. Lastly, Williams is losing a lot of his dropbacks to scrambles. While those don’t generate points for the receivers, they do extend drives, which is extremely valuable in fantasy, because it means more plays in the future and better odds of drives ending in the end zone.

2) Michael Penix makes his 2026 debut

Penix finally took the field on Thursday and looked good. He was elite in the spreadsheets and now ranks top five in EPA per play, success rate, and CPOE. Pro Football Focus assigned him their eighth-best passing grade of the week. Penix isn’t likely to settle in a as a weekly top-five passer, but he is a night-and-day improvement over Cooper Rush.

If you don’t know where to look for Rush, find the lone dot at the bottom-left of the graph. Penix, meanwhile, is near the top right. Penix doesn’t have to be an elite quarterback to turn Drake London into a superstar. He just needs to be competent, and that appears to be the case.

On the other hand, Kyle Pitts might need something else. He simply isn’t a target-earner when London is on the field.

Over the past two years and three weeks, Pitts averages an additional four targets when London is out. He’s barely a TE2 when London is active.

3) Jeremiyah Love takes over

The Cardinals spent the No. 5 overall pick—and the record-setting running back contract that came with it—on Jeremiyah Love and chose to make him a committee back for two weeks. They mercifully gave up on that absurd plan in Week 3. Love saw 21 carries to Tyler Allgeier’s two. Allgeier was still the primary two-minute drill back and that put four catches in his box score, but Love was on the field for passing plays on early downs, allowing him to rack up five catches on two more routes than Allgeier. Now the Cardinals get to face a Jameis Winston-led Giants team. They are favored by sportsbooks for the first time this year. It’s wheels up for Love.

4) Brock Bowers is AFC Jaxon Smith-Njigba

Klint Kubiak unlocked Jaxon Smith-Njigba last year and he’s going to do the same for Bowers. After missing the first two games of the season because of a late-summer surgery, Bowers was back in action last week and went nuclear. He caught 10 passes for 113 yards and a score. Bowers earned a 41 percent target share and saw 40 percent of the team’s air yards. He now leads all tight ends in both stats by a laughable margin. The expected points were off the charts because Kubiak simply played him as a wide receiver.

Bowers ran 39 percent of his routes from out wide—a rate that currently leads all tight ends—and saw another 39 percent of his routes from the slot. I hope the Bowers faders enjoyed their two weeks of prosperity. The end times are upon them.

5) Rashee Rice comes to life

The Chiefs’ passing attack was running through Kenneth Walker and Travis Kelce for two games before the Rice was reheated in Week 3. He went from an 11 percent target share through two weeks to a monstrous 39 percent target share over the weekend. His aDOT is up to seven this year and hit 7.4 in Week 3, vaulting him to a 43 percent air yards share. Rice was the intended target on 12 percent of Patrick Mahomes’ first-read throws through two weeks. He had a first-read target share of 40 percent on Sunday. Per usual, Rice is a YAC god, averaging over nine yards after the catch per reception, which would actually be a career-high. But now he might also set a career-high aDOT, meaning his per-target efficiency could skyrocket. Rice needs to keep earning targets to make good on that efficiency, but things are setting up extremely well for him if the targets are there.

6) Another quarterback goes down

This has already been a catastrophic year for quarterback injuries, and things are only getting worse with Baker Mayfield expected to miss at least three weeks with a thumb injury on his throwing hand. Jalon Daniels will take over for him in Week 4. Daniels—a UDFA from Kansas—beat out Jake Browning for the QB2 job during the preseason. Despite that, Daniels wasn’t particularly impressive in his three exhibition games. Out of 55 qualified quarterbacks during the preseason, Daniels ranked 23rd in accurate throw rate and 19th in EPA per dropback. PFF assigned him their 40th-best offensive grade. Daniels didn’t turn the ball over and PFF didn’t even chart him with a turnover-worthy play. That seems to be why the Bucs went with him as their backup. He’s a safe choice compared to Browning, who had one turnover-worthy play and five sacks on 22 preseason dropbacks. Daniels was sacked three times on 53 dropbacks. Daniels ran for more than 400 yards three times in his six-year collegiate career, so he could be a high-floor backup with some dual-threat capabilities in the pros. On the other hand, the preseason body of work was ultimately underwhelming, so I don’t see things improving for the Bucs with Mayfield on ice.

7) Chargers backfield turns into a committee

Nothing about Omarion Hampton’s efficiency suggests he should be the focal point of a team’s rushing attack, and the Chargers seemed to get the message in Week 3. His carry share, which was over 70 percent in each of the first two games, hit 58 percent. Hampton was on the field for fewer than half of the snaps and ran a grand total of six routes. His route rate has fallen in every game this year. It’s hard to blame them for playing Keaton Mitchell more.

YAC/AttemptRYOE/AttemptMTF/AttemptSuccess RateExplosive Run Rate
Omarion Hampton3-0.380.2438%8.8%Keaton Mitchell3.10.140.2935%20%

Hampton is a two-down grinder on a terrible offense. He’s barely an RB3 right now.

8) Jags throw in the towel on BTJ

Liam Coen seems over the Brian Thomas Jr. experiment. BTJ’s route rate fell to 47 percent in Week 3. That is the lowest single-game route participation of his career. His Week 1 rate of 56 percent is his second-lowest rate. Even though BTJ ran more routes than rookie Josh Cameron, he was the recipient of just one first-read target compared to two for Cameron. One of those was a red zone target that Cameron cashed in for his second score of the year. Cameron has two red zone targets and one end zone target this year. BTJ has none of either. Thomas Jr. is looking more like waiver wire fodder than a viable FLEX play after three weeks.

9) Zay Flowers remains unstoppable

Flowers returned from a one-week absence in Week 3. He “only” caught six passes for 84 yards, but did so while running just 14 routes. Between his two partial games, Flowers has a measly 48 percent route rate. He ranks 11th in target share at 27 percent. The next-highest target share for a player with a route rate below 50 percent belongs to A.J. Brown, at 13 percent in his lone appearance. Flowers is averaging nearly 10 yards per route and is being targeted on just under half of his routes. Those numbers are so good they’re hard to contextualize, but this tweet does them justice.

If we redrafted our fantasy teams today, I would have Flowers at the 1/2 turn.

10) It’s Drake Mayover

It’s Drake Mover

It’s Drover

I’ll figure this joke out by next week. The issues with Maye have been twofold. He’s making mistakes at a higher rate than any quarterback and he’s making up for them with big plays at a lower rate than any other passer. Maye has the fourth-highest sack rate (10.1 percent) and leads the league in interception rate (7.5 percent) by a mile. These aren’t anomalies either. The stickier stats that underpin them are also terrifying. Maye leads the league in turnover-worthy play rate (8.6 percent) and is sixth in pressure-to-sack rate (21.4 percent).

The Pats are finding extremely detrimental outcomes at one of the highest clips in the league, but they’re also struggling to hit on a single game-changing pass. Maye is throwing deep at the second-highest rate (16.3 percent) among qualified QBs. He has four interceptions with no touchdowns on these throws. PFF has him graded as the third-worst deep thrower. He can’t buy a touchdown to save his season, and that includes trips to the red zone. The Pats have scored a touchdown on 17 percent of their drives that have made it inside the 20. The next-worst team is scoring at a 29 percent clip.

I don’t think Maye is the worst deep-ball thrower in the league, nor do I think he is more prone to mistakes than 31 other starting quarterbacks. He’ll improve from here. On the other hand, “some” improvement isn’t enough. He has to look like 2025 Drake Maye to pay off, and that isn’t happening anytime soon.

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