Happy Thanksgiving FA Nation! This is the time of year where we enjoy gathering with friends and family and give thanks for all that we have in our lives. As we gave thanks, let’s look back to who we’re thanking for getting in the Red Zone so often last week with this newest edition of the Red Zone Report.

Red Zone Passing Attempts

Lamar Jackson , QB BAL – As Jen Piacenti called him in the Hot Route video this week, he’s clearly an Avenger with all of the Infinity Stones. That certainly was on display on Monday night in L.A. against the Rams when he had 10 passing attempts inside the 20 with half of those turning into touchdowns. The 10 passing attempts were the most by him on the season and more than the last two weeks combined. He didn’t get a rushing attempt in the Red Zone this week, but hey when you’re throwing for five scores, who needs the running game to be working. He’s been the best QB for fantasy this year, and he’s showing no signs of slowing down.

Sam Darnold , QB NYJ – Darnold has made a turnaround since “seeing ghosts” against the Patriots and this week had the most Red Zone passing attempts in a game this season. His nine attempts resulted in two passing touchdowns and he added two rushes, one of which went for a score against Oakland. The Jets’ QB is looking more like the guy that showed promise last year after finally seemingly putting Mono behind him and the last few weeks of the year should be pretty good match-ups overall for him.

Jameis Winston , QB TB – Winston has been a bit up and down this year in terms of performance on the field but one thing that he hasn’t been up and down in is Red Zone passing attempts. He has 63 on the season through the ¾ mark and that’s second in the league behind only Tom Brady . In Week 12 he posted seven attempts, his third such effort in the last six games. Two of those seven attempts went for scores. It shouldn’t be a shock to see Winston putting up good numbers with the weapons he has and the system he’s playing in, but it is interesting to see that he’s that high in the total in the league given some of the competition he’s surrounded by.

Red Zone Rushing Attempts

Christian McCaffrey , RB CAR – McCaffrey has been a stud all season but for all of those impressive stat lines, this past week was the most Red Zone attempts he’s had in a game. The eight carries resulted in one of his touchdowns on the day but then he also added three receptions inside the 20 and one of those went for a score as well. CMC has a good shot of being in a neck-and-neck battle for NFL MVP this year but it’ll continued performances like this one that would get him there, if he does take the award.

Leonard Fournette , RB JAC – The pure volume wasn’t there for Fournette on Sunday as he had just four Red Zone rushes, but that was his highest total since Week 8. It was however, a productive day as he used those four touches for two touchdowns and then also had two catches inside the 20 as well. Fournette gets the volume of touches you need out of a potential RB1 option but all of that volume has only turned into three weeks of more than four Red Zone carries this season.

Benny Snell, RB PIT – Snell managed to do something in Week 12 that no other Steelers’ RB had done previously this year. He carried it six times inside the 20 and that was the first time any Pittsburgh back carried it more than four times in the Red Zone. Snell didn’t exactly do anything with the six carries he had there as he failed to punch it over the goal line, but it was still nice to see the volume present in the Steelers’ backfield for once this year.

Red Zone Receiving Targets

Marquise Brown , WR BAL – So we mentioned earlier how Jackson had 10 passes in this area of the field and they had to go somewhere, that somewhere was Brown. He saw six of them through the air and caught four of them including one for a touchdown. Brown was drafted to be the top target for Baltimore with their lacking receiving corps heading into the season and now that he’s healthy once again, it’s starting to show up in his stat lines. If Jackson is going to keep torching opposing defenses, Brown should be the beneficiary of those bigger target loads.

D.J. Moore , WR CAR – Moore has been dinged by the quarterback inconsistency in Carolina this year as Cam Newton struggled early and Kyle Allen has been up and down, however in Week 12, Moore hit a season-high for Red Zone targets. The four targets that he saw on last Sunday not only equaled the last three weeks combined, but was half of his season total heading into the game which sat at eight. He caught three of those four targets and had a score as Kyle Allen had 11 passing attempts in the game. Moore is still the top target in the Carolina passing game, but he’s been a bit match-up dependent to this point.

Jarvis Landry , WR CLE – It was a revenge game for Landry as he was back in Miami for the first time since being let go as a free agent and boy did he show up. He had the best game of the season and a few of those big plays came inside the 20 with two targets and catching both for two touchdowns to add to his 148 yards on the day. There was fear that Landry was going to get overlooked now with his best friend opposite him out wide but as Jen Piacenti pointed out in her Hot Route video this week, Landry has seen the exact same number of targets as Odell Beckham Jr. this year but has 120 more yards and three more touchdowns and as he’s done the last few seasons, he’s leading the team in Red Zone targets at 17 so he’s still getting the chances when they get inside the opponent’s 20.

Red Zone Defense

Tennessee Titans – Tennessee pulled off a nice win last week to get themselves squarely back in the hunt in the AFC South division race but a downside to their late-season run might be the lack of Red Zone defense. When sorted by percentage of touchdowns allowed, the Titans are third-worst in the league at 64.5-percent allowed in 31 opponent trips inside the 20. The offense is looking a lot better now with Ryan Tannehill at quarterback, the defense will have to make some key stops down the stretch to try and get their way into the playoffs in the last four games of the season.

Houston Texans – The team sitting currently in first place in the AFC South might not have much of a weakness on offense with Deshaun Watson at quarterback and DeAndre Hopkins at wideout, but here’s the thing, they are the worst team in the NFL in Red Zone touchdown defense. Allowing 32 trips by opponents to their 20 isn’t bad and puts them in the top-10 in fewest trips allowed, but the 21 TDs equaling 65.6-percent scoring percentage is the worst mark in the league. Down the stretch where tight games happen more often as the AFC playoff picture remains cloudy, this weakness might come back to bite them in the end.