Besides the superb play of Jack Sanborn (90% of snaps), a few other LB notes from Week 10. Some of the material is from a fantasy site, some is my own observations:
LB Devin Lloyd played a season-low 60% of defensive snaps for Jacksonville.
Lloyd sat on the bench for a large portion of the Jaguars’ loss to the Chiefs in place of fellow rookie
Chad Muma, who played a season-high 40% of defensive snaps. When asked about the choice, head coach
Doug Pederson said there was no injury, and they just wanted to get Muma some snaps. Since Week 4, Lloyd has allowed 37 completions on 41 targets for an NFL passer rating of 122, which, fun fact, would be the highest passer rating for any quarterback in the league. While it’s unclear if this usage change will be permanent, managers should have some concerns regarding Lloyd until there is more certainty about the situation.
LB Robert Spillane played 100% of defensive snaps for Pittsburgh in Week 10.
Managers were understandably upset by
Myles Jack after he was cleared to play but failed to see a single snap. After the game, coach Mike Tomlin stated that Jack was held out as a precaution. Spillane played every snap for the Steelers as his replacement and recorded seven tackles. While it seems unlikely that Jack misses next week, the notable usage trend here is that
Devin Bush saw no significant increase in snap rate. Should Jack miss more time, expect Spillane to continue being the snap leader at the position.
LB Alex Singleton played 53% of defensive snaps for Denver in Week 10.
With the return of
Josey Jewell in Week 8, I expected Singleton to be relegated to a special teams-only player once again. That hasn't happened. The Broncos' coaching staff has decided to keep Singleton as a rotational defensive asset, even with Jewell playing 100% of defensive snaps. That has led to
Jonas Griffith playing his lowest snap rate of the season. Singleton has defied regression statistics in just about every game he’s played this season, and if he can continue to be an efficient tackler, he may be in starting consideration in moderately deep leagues.
Luke Masterson played 72% of snaps for the Raiders in his first significant usage following the retirement of Blake Martinez.
While Singleton played 53% of snaps, the Broncos still used Jonas Griffith on 21%. Singleton had 8 tackles, 5 of them solo, while Griffith had zero, typical of the production disparity between them that has prevailed all season. The Broncos remain idiots for not playing Singleton next to fellow ultra-productive ILB Josey Jewell on every snap.