Fantasy Football Target Trends: 3 big-name players doing their best Diontae Johnson impression

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There isn’t a buzzy winner for the Diontae Johnson Award this year — the player who gets all of the targets, none of the touchdowns. Every player with 67 targets or more this year has found the end zone. Cade Otton sits at 66 targets with no touchdowns, and he might stay there for a while — he’s listed as doubtful for Week 15. Chig Okonkwo (53 targets) and Kendrick Bourne (43 targets) are also working on a bagel, but it’s not like we expected miracles from these guys. They’re not part of the story.

So let’s focus on the heavily-targeted players who have run poorly with touchdowns — while not sitting on a zero — and see what we make of it.

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WR Justin Jefferson (109 targets, two touchdowns)

It’s been a nightmare season for the first-round pick, as he sits 10th in targets but is merely the WR25. He hasn’t topped 80 yards since Week 5 and he’s scored just once in his last 12 games.

Maybe it seems too convenient to blame everything on J.J. McCarthy’s growing pains, but that’s probably the right conclusion. Consider that Carson Wentz and McCarthy have both targeted Jefferson roughly the same amount of times in 2025, with very different results:

– Wentz to Jefferson: 34-for-50 (68.0%), 477 yards, 9.5 YPA
– McCarthy to Jefferson: 28-for-53 (52.8%), 329 yards, 6.2 YPA

Both of the touchdowns came from McCarthy, but McCarthy also has six picks when targeting Jefferson (Wertz had two). Wentz posted an 81.8 rating when targeting Jefferson, while McCarthy is down at 45.0.

Jefferson holds an optimistic WR16 consensus rank this week, in part because the Cowboys are such a favorable draw. But it’s likely this problem won’t really be sorted out until next year, when the Vikings can bring in stronger competition for McCarthy. The Minnesota infrastructure still has plenty to attract an interesting free agent — Kevin O’Connell is a respected play-caller and QB developer, and Jefferson and Jordan Addison are appealing targets. I’ll be open to a Jefferson bounce-back in 2026, but I will not start him proactively the rest of this season.

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WR Zay Flowers (95 targets, one touchdown)

This one especially stings, as I had a third-year Flowers breakout on my 2025 menu. He had a 7-143-1 explosion in the opening week loss at Buffalo, and hasn’t scored a touchdown since.

You can’t argue with the overall opportunity. Flowers is 16th in targets, 12th in catches, eighth in yards. His yards per target (9.4) is a career high; so is his catch rate (71.6%). When Lamar Jackson targets Flowers, the results are lovely: 10.4 YPA, 108.7 rating.

The poor touchdown count is a little bad luck. Flowers has been tackled inside the 10-yard line on seven different receptions. But we also need to understand the Ravens don’t throw to Flowers much from in close — he has just two targets inside the 10 and a modest seven targets inside the 20.

Before the year, Flowers was a career-arc pick (entering Season 3) and a bet-on-talent pick, the idea that a wideout this skilled surely could score more than 4-5 touchdowns when tied to an MVP-contending quarterback. Flowers has obviously been hurt by Jackson missing time this year and also by Jackson’s struggles since returning, though the Baltimore offense looked better last week. But until the Ravens find a way to unlock Flowers in the tighter areas — and remember, he’s a modest 5-foot-9, 175 pounds — we’re talking about a player who will routinely smash between the 20s but likely struggle to score touchdowns.

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TE Kyle Pitts Sr. (85 targets, one touchdown)

I’m not here to take gratuitous shots at Pitts, who’s been useful for fantasy managers lately. He checked in as TE6 and TE7 the last two weeks, and if you grade all tight ends from Week 7 onward, he’s the TE11. That’s a player worth rostering, and often a player worth starting.

Just don’t look for him in the end zone, of course.

This is a long-running theme for Pitts’s career — he’s scored just 11 times in 74 pro games, and never more than four in any season. And the Falcons aren’t trying to unlock Pitts as a touchdown scorer this year.

Consider the usage trends on Pitts. He has the third-highest market share (20.3%) of all tight ends, and the sixth-highest first-read rate (21.0%). The Falcons like throwing to Pitts, just not in the scoring area. He’s seen just one end-zone target all year (Trey McBride leads with 15) and he has just five red-zone targets for the season (that’s behind players like Gunnar Helm, Dawson Knox, Tyler Higbee and Ja’Tavion Sanders). This isn’t a case of bad luck on Pitts, it actually represents a choice from the Atlanta coaching staff.

The Falcons are a disappointing 4-9 and will likely clean house after the season. Given that Pitts is still fairly young (he turns 26 next October), I might be willing to take him as an upside TE2/TE3 in the latter stages of next summer’s drafts, provided the right offensive mind takes over this team.

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Top-5 target earners at each position from Week 14

Wide Receiver

Running Back

Tight End

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