With just three weeks left in the fantasy football regular season, you’re going to have to be very careful with your roster adjustments. While it’s easy to be lured in by a high-level performance, you have to be sure you are investing in the right person. Was the performance a one-off or does he have the potential to repeat regardless of who his opponent is next week? That’s a very important distinction to make. If he’s a one-off, you can’t be afraid to let him go for your next pick-up. If you truly think he’s got the ability to repeat, then you have to be willing to start him moving forward. With six teams on bye in Week 11, your evaluations, additions and subtractions are more important than ever.
Stock Rising
Eli Manning , QB NYG – THIS IS TEMPORARY, PEOPLE. RELAX. Apologies for the all-caps text, but there are probably a number of you ready to click out of the article immediately after seeing Eli’s name without even hearing my point. The Monday night game for Eli was good, not great. You have to take his performance with a grain of salt. The 49ers are a team that not only struggles defensively, but was also with their top linebacker, Reuben Foster , so it’s not like he was facing a formidable opponent. So why is he here in the Stock Rising section? His next opponent is Tampa Bay. The Bucs have the lowest-rated pass rush and rank in the bottom-five according to Pro Football Focus pass-coverage grades. If the Giants offensive line is truly improved by the addition of Jamon Brown , then Eli should be able to have at least a similar, if not better, game this coming week.
Rashaad Penny , RB SEA – With Chris Carson out of action, the Seahawks started their game with , but it was Penny who saw the majority of touches out of the backfield and it was Penny who was the most productive with 108 yards and a touchdown on 12 carries. Save for zero action in the passing game, this was the Penny fantasy owners expected to see when he was a fourth-round pick in early drafts this season. But while this certainly increases his stock, the question remains as to who is going to lead this backfield moving forward. Carson is expected to return to action Thursday, Davis has been rock-solid as a starter and now we’ve got Penny. You should definitely pick him, ESPECIALLY WITH HOW MUCH THE Seahawks are running the ball, but before you go throwing him into your lineup against the Packers this week, you may want to wait and see how the distribution works with all three of them healthy.
Josh Adams , RB PHI – The Eagles are in dire need of a lead running back and neither Corey Clement nor Wendell Smallwood seems to be the answer. Adams, on the other hand, becomes a very intriguing option, especially when you see he’s racked up 108 yards on 16 carries over the last two games. He’s out-touched and out-produced both Clement and Smallwood over that span and it looks like head coach Doug Pederson is warming up to the idea of giving him more touches. The Eagles have a ton to fix if they want to try and get back into the race, but the potential for Adams to become a solid RB2 option remains high.
Jaylen Samuels , RB PIT -- When a report breaks that Steelers coach Mike Tomlin says the arrow is “continually pointing up” for Samuels, fantasy owners immediately jump. It’s like when I ask my dogs if they want to go to the beach and all their ears pop up at the same time. After five carries, four catches and a touchdown in a game James Conner left early, Samuels is all the rage. Suddenly we’re remembering he has TE-eligibility on Yahoo and we’re ready to start dumping productive players thinking he is the handcuff for Conner. Is he? Probably not. Should Conner go down, you can expect Stevan Ridley to step in as the early-down back and Samuels as the third-down pass-catcher. Don’t get me wrong…I love Samuels. I was actually using my last-round pick of the draft in a number of leagues on Samuels, so you know I’m a fan. The problem is the lack of opportunity. If Conner returns to action this week, then Samuels will barely see the field. If he doesn’t, then, at best, he’s in a supporting role and has a little bit of upside.
Anthony Miller , WR CHI – The Bears’ rookie wideout continues to climb up the ranks in fantasy and after his first 100-yard game, people are finally starting to take notice. What’s not to love about a guy who scores a touchdown every other week and is seeing an increase in targets? He went from averaging just under four targets per game to just under six over his last four games and, even better, in that span, has seen at least one red zone target each week. The return of Allen Robinson didn’t affect Miller’s targets or production as it was Taylor Gabriel who saw his role diminish. If Miller is still on your waiver wire, he’s a must-add.
Corey Davis , WR TEN – Allow me to just clarify why I’ve been off Davis for this entire season. It’s never been about Davis’ talent level as much as it’s been about the situation in Tennessee. The offensive line was in shambles, they wanted to remain a run-first offense and Marcus Mariota was showing zero signs of improvement. Since the Titans’ bye week, however, Mariota looks like a different QB and the offensive line is holding strong. That, in turn, has resulted in 20 targets over two games for Davis which he has now turned into 13 catches for 181 yards and a touchdown. With soft pass defenses like the Colts and the Texans coming up, Mariota is likely to continue favoring the quick release and rely on his receivers to do the rest. That favors using Davis, so if someone lost faith and dumped him, you’re going to want to get a piece of that.
Austin Hooper , TE ATL – One of the reasons I was on Hooper last year was because of how Steve Sarkisian favored the tight ends in the passing game. Just go back and look at his three or four collegiate seasons prior to accepting the job and you’ll see. Hooper has now seen double-digit targets in three of his last five games and two touchdowns over his last four. If he is going to continue seeing this kind of volume and is going to continue producing, then, given the state of the position, he should be one of the better options.
Stock Falling
Ryan Fitzpatrick , QB TB – We told you the FitzMagic was going to fizzle out. We just didn’t know if it would be one game, three games or three quarters. Well, after witnessing that debacle against Washington (and no, I don’t care that he went for over 300 yards), we shouldn’t be thinking of him as a starting QB in fantasy. His schedule isn’t too tough moving forward, but when news reports are saying that he will remain the team’s starting quarterback in Week 11, you know there have already been numerous internal discussions about going back to Jameis Winston . The clock is ticking….or is that a time-bomb?
Andy Dalton , QB CIN – If you thought you could put your trust in Dalton, you obviously haven’t been paying attention. He had that horrible Week 7 start against the Steelers and that signified he was standing at the edge of a cliff he’s stood at for years. Right around Week 6 or 7, Dalton tends to implode and is then lost for the season. You can’t trust him. Now sure, he bounced back against Tampa Bay, but doesn’t everyone play well against Tampa? Their pass defense is the worst in the league. He had a good game against with 280 passing yards and two touchdowns, but then he went on the bye week and came back to, again, reveal his true self. This game against the Saints was just the tip of the nightmare about to ensue as he faces some of the better pass defenses coming up. Stay away. Stay very far away.
Jordan Howard , RB CHI – The problem here isn’t with the player as much as it is with the coach. Matt Nagy built up Howard’s stock in the preseason by declaring him as his every-down back and lauded him for his improved pass-catching. Yet time and time again, he goes to Tarik Cohen for inside runs and leans on the passing attack rather than use Howard properly. We saw Nagy correct his blunder for two straight weeks, but he went right back to his old ways during this win against the Lions – a game that never would have been close in the second half had he just chewed up the clock with the run – and Howard was gone once again. You just can’t trust his usage right now.
Golden Tate , WR PHI – The Eagles went out and traded for Tate…for what? Seriously. For what? The receiver played in just 29% of the snaps and saw two targets all game. Are you kidding me? Why did you trade for him? To back up Jordan Matthews ? Come on. The Eagles are clearly trying to find an identity right now as they don’t trust their running backs and they’re not using their best receiving targets. Are they a pass-across-the-middle-to-Nelson Agholor now? If so, then Tate was a wasted acquisition. The only excuse would be if the deal was done to prevent Tate from going to a rival, but whatever the case, his fantasy value couldn’t be lower than it is right now.
Tyler Boyd , WR CIN – He’s only he on a temporary basis. Just like Eli. But Boyd is here because A. A.J. Green is out and Boyd is getting blanket coverage now and B. Dalton sucks at football, at least at this time of year. Once Boyd goes back to be the No. 2 receiver and can do his thing out of the slot, then we’ll go back to locking him into our starting lineups.
Jarvis Landry , WR CLE – Talk about getting duped. Yeesh. Things were looking better for a couple of games as Landry’s catch rate started to increase and it looked like he and Baker Mayfield were finally on the same page. Then he saw his targets drop. The catch rate stayed strong, but he went from 12 targets to seven and then in this past week he saw just five. Yeah, five. He caught two of them for 22 yards and never got anything going. So now the question remains – is that the coaching change stealing targets from Landry or is it the vastly improved ground game thanks to Nick Chubb . Whatever the case may be, in standard leagues he’s hot trash and in PPR, he’ll only be good enough if he’s getting the looks.
Jordan Reed , TE WAS – Hope is a dangerous thing when it comes to fantasy football. Hope doesn’t score points and hope doesn’t win you fantasy championships. So if you’re still hoping Reed is going to go back to being a viable TE option, you should just pack it in now. Alex Smith doesn’t throw to him nearly enough and there is zero rapport between the two. OK, maybe not zero but in comparison to what it was like with Kirk Cousins at the helm? The TE position, overall, is a disaster and holding onto Reed is even worse. He is nothing more than a potential streamer, but even then, the match-up would have to be ridiculously soft.