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Fantasy football Week 9: Buffalo Bills passing game targets

Halfway through his rookie season, Sammy Watkins is on pace for 76 receptions, 1,180 yards, and 10 touchdowns. What else can we surmise about the Bills' passing attack right now?

Al Bello

At the midway point of the 2014 season, the Buffalo Bills are starting to establish some trends - and rely heavily upon - their passing attack, under the operation of veteran quarterback Kyle Orton.

Instead of updating our year-to-date receiving chart within its usual targets-per-snap metric, we'll sort it in descending order by the most-targeted players in the passing offense for the bye week. Naturally, rookie Sammy Watkins is a distant leader in that category, being thrown to once every four times a Bills quarterback drops back to pass. He also has more receiving yardage this season than any two of his teammates combined.

Watkins remains firmly behind running back Fred Jackson, however, in the targets-per-snap played metric. Jackson remains one of the most important players in Buffalo's passing offense - and it's worth pointing out that with Jackson missing yesterday's 43-23 win over the New York Jets, it was Bryce Brown (three targets on just 14 snaps played) that filled his role as the go-to back in Buffalo's offense.

Here's a detailed statistical look at the Bills' receiving group through the first half of the season. What stands out to you?

Pos. Player Snaps Tar %Snap %Tar Stats
WR Sammy Watkins 505 67 13.3% 24.9% 38 rec, 590 yds, 5 TD
WR Robert Woods 444 51 11.5% 19.0% 28 rec, 294 yds, 2 TD
RB Fred Jackson 249 42 16.9% 15.6% 33 rec, 261 yds, 1 TD
TE Scott Chandler 324 35 10.8% 13.0% 23 rec, 290 yds, 1 TD
WR Mike Williams 184 18 9.8% 6.7% 8 rec, 142 yds, 1 TD
RB C.J. Spiller 157 16 10.2% 5.9% 14 rec, 109 yds, 1 TD
WR Chris Hogan 111 15 13.5% 5.6% 13 rec, 176 yds, 1 TD
WR Marquise Goodwin 57 6 10.5% 2.2% 1 rec, 42 yds
FB Frank Summers 118 5 4.2% 1.9% 4 rec, 7 yds
TE Chris Gragg 151 5 3.3% 1.9% 4 rec, 35 yds, 1 TD
RB Anthony Dixon 107 4 3.7% 1.5% 3 rec, 15 yds
RB Bryce Brown 14 3 21.4% 1.1%
TE Lee Smith 135 2 1.5% 0.7% 2 rec, 5 yds, 1 TD