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Fantasy Football Weekly: Week 5

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We've made it through a quarter of the NFL regular season (probably about a third of your fantasy football league's regular season) and patterns, trends and the fantasy pecking order are slowly becoming more and more noticeable.

So, before we dive into our weekly outlook on this Sunday's Jacksonville Jaguars vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers matchup, let's take a look at how the Buccaneers fantasy stars are performing this so far this season to help us project where they'll be headed the rest of the way.

The chart below shows the top-performing Buccaneers along with their standard fantasy points scored (FPts), their position ranking (PRK) and where they were drafted compared to other from their position (ADP). A negative difference between PRK and ADP means the player is outperforming their draft position, positive means they are underperforming. (ADP data from NFL.com)

Name

Pos.

FPts

PRK

ADP

Diff.

Jameis Winston

QB

55

16

24

-8

Doug Martin

RB

35

19

35

-16

Charles Sims

RB

29

25

41

-16

Mike Evans

WR

13

71

11

+60

Vincent Jackson

WR

40

18

29

-11

Louis Murphy

WR

16

57

 -

-

Austin Seferian-Jenkins

TE

25

14

23

-9

Buccaneers Defense

DST

18

23

31

-8

So, outside of Mike Evans, who missed the first game and was limited with no points in Week 2, every Buccaneer is outperforming their draft slot. If you opted for a Tampa Bay player this year, kudos.

Winston currently ranks above Drew Brees and Andrew Luck (both active only three weeks), Peyton Manning, Matthew Stafford, Colin Kaepernick and three others taken ahead of him.

Despite the relative timeshare at the position, both Buccaneers backs are performing better than fantasy players expected with 533 total yards and three touchdowns between them.

Coming off a dominant 10-catch, 147-yard, 1-TD performance last week, Jackson finds himself in the top-20 of NFL fantasy receivers, while undrafted Louis Murphy (owned currently in just 0.2% of ESPN leagues) ranks 57th at the position.

TE Austin Seferian-Jenkins is 14th at his position despite playing just two of four games this season (23 points in Week 1, two in Week 2). Only New England's Rob Gronkowski can boast a higher fantasy pointer per game average than ASJ's 12.5. He's owned in just 12% of leagues and worth a look when he sheds his doubtful status.

As we continue to watch this offense come together on the field, it is only logical to assume that these fantasy performances are just scratching the surface. Mike Evans is just getting started and the running game is just hitting a rhythm. Next week, the Bucs face the bye, but come back to the Redskins, Falcons and Giants. The Redskins are the fourth-best defense in terms of yards per game allowed, but the Falcons and Giants rank 27th and 26th respectively in that category.

Now onto the Week 5 fantasy outlook.

TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS
Beyond the fact that they are outperforming their preseason projections so far this season, the Buccaneers look like a good bet going into Week 5 based on their matchup. Experts are predicting a low scoring game for this one, but it could easily turn into a bit of a shootout between two young teams.

Photos from the Bucs victory over the Jaguars, 17-16, in 1995.

Jameis Winston will face his first defense of the season that is allowing more than 260 passing yards per game. In fact, over the last three weeks, they have allowed 333 passing ypg and five touchdowns with no interceptions. Winston has been consistent so far this season from a fantasy perspective, not scoring under a dozen fantasy points in any of his four games and he stands a good chance to best his season-high 18 points this week. If you need a bye week or injury filler, Winston is a solid fill-in option this week, and with his price in daily leagues, he could be one of the biggest bargains of the week.

After going off for 143 total yards and a touchdown in Week 4 (at 5.3 yards per carry), Doug Martin looks good going into this matchup. It is still worth noting that Charles Sims could steal some time. Despite the inconsistency so far, Martin is a strong Flex-level starter this week and should see a good amount of work.  Sims has 11 standard points in each of his last two games thanks to finding the end zone. He has 10 catches on the year, so looks better in PPR leagues than standard.

At receiver, Mike Evans and Vincent Jackson are looking quite unpredictable. In Week 3, Evans broke 100 yards on seven catches (17 PPR points) while Jackson managed two grabs for 40 yards (six points). The next week, Jackson hauled in 10 passes with 147 yards and a score, making him the second-highest scoring player at any position last week in PPR leagues with 30 points. Meanwhile, Evans went 3 receptions for 32 yards and six points.

Fantasy owners would love to see a bit more consistency from the two, but either way, both should be in your starting lineup. At tight end and defense, you can likely find better options available this week, although there is some upside to the Bucs defense.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS
The Jaguars are also outpacing their preseason marks as a whole. QB Blake Bortles is the league's 11th-highest scoring at his position. The Buccaneers defense has given up a passing touchdown in each game, but are still below the league average in points allowed. Like Winston, Bortles makes a good bye week/injury fill-in if you're in a deeper league and need a signal caller.

Photos of the Jaguars' projected starters from team's depth chart.

T.J. Yeldon is the only running back on the team with more than three points this year and sees the majority of the carries for the team. He has yet to have a true breakout fantasy performance with his highest-scoring game so far being 10 points just last week, when he took 22 carries for 105 yards. He could be in line for another starting-caliber performance facing a Bucs defense that has allowed 20 or more points to opposing running backs in three of their four games so far.

Only one player besides Yeldon is owned in more than 45% of ESPN fantasy leagues, WR Allen Robinson. Robinson has a stellar 155-yard, 2-TD, 27-fantasy-point outing in Week 2, but has games of six and eight since then. The Bucs are a good matchup, but Robinson should see extra attention.

Fellow WR Allen Hurns is just three fantasy points behind him this season and has a higher fantasy score in Jacksonville's other three games. While Allen is their WR1, Hurns could again be in line for the bigger game if he does see single coverage, especially in PPR formats. He has a TD in each of the last two games. Flying under the radar (44.2% owned), he is a sneaky play this week in daily leagues. Depending on who else is on your roster, either WR is worthy of a Flex spot this week.

TE Julius Thomas is listed as questionable and was able to practice on a limited basis this week. If he does play in his first game of 2015 this week, he should still spend it on your bench. He would likely see limited snaps in his first action and the Buccaneers are giving up the 11th fewest points to opposing TEs. Discounting Ed Dickson's fumble recovery TD from last week, the Bucs have allowed just four points total to tight ends in the last three weeks combined.

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