Ranking fantasy football Week 2 winners and losers

Week 2 of fantasy football still featured plenty of duds, although there were arguably more studs than duds this week compared to Week 1. Real life rends are starting to shape now, and those have played a big part in ranking this week's fantasy football winners and losers.

Winner #5: Detroit Lions TE Sam LaPorta, Week 2: 11.3 points

Unlike Week 1, the Lions were unable to make their lead count and instead wound up losing to the Seattle Seahawks in overtime. Detroit had an 80 percent chance of winning after Jason Myers' missed field goal on the dawn of halftime, but that meant nothing in the end.

Jared Goff still passed for 323 yards, with star receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown accounting for 102 of those. The big takeaway, though, is that rookie tight end Sam LaPorta caught five of six targets for 63 yards - good for third on the team in all three categories.

The Iowa product has clearly established a significant role in this Lions offense early on and has earned the trust of his quarterback, more importantly. With running back David Montgomery likely out 'for a few weeks', the Lions will be forced to rely on Jahmyr Gibbs more, and their passing game by extension of that. Expect LaPorta to maintain his weekly fringe-fantasy TE1 status.

Loser #5: Atlanta Falcons TE Kyle Pitts, Week 2: 3.5 points

Nobody knows what happened to the 1,000-yard-rookie-season Kyle Pitts, but wherever he is, it's not Atlanta. Pitts has just three career touchdowns, and hasn't scored since Week 10 of 2022 against the Carolina Panthers.

The Falcons were always going to be a run-first, low-octane offense with the addition of Bijan Robinson, but it doesn't have to be that way. There's nothing actually wrong with Pitts, and he and Drake London are criminally underutilized. This can't be the way Atlanta's owners or front office imagined it would be, but here we are.

Pitts was out-targeted and out-gained by fellow tight end Jonnu Smith in Week 2, but the Falcons won so this will be brushed under the rug. As long as Desmond Ridder is the quarterback and as long as he's running an Arthur Smith offense, Pitts just won't be fantasy-relevant on a weekly basis, if at all. Atlanta needs change to become true winners again.