Start or Sit Amari Cooper, Jordy Nelson in Fantasy Football Week Five?
Week four is in the books, and that means that the fantasy football season is already at its quarter pole. Even though that’s not what the quarter pole is, we use that term anyway. It’s been a weird season to be an Amari Cooper owner, and an even weirder season if you are a Jordy Nelson owner. For Amari Cooper, you have “Don’t Sit Your Studs” to fall back on, but Jordy has been a massive question mark each week. In this Raiders Start or Sit Twofer, we will address two questions: “should you start or sit Amari Cooper?” and “should you start or sit Jordy Nelson?”
Amari Cooper has all the size and talent in the world, and Amari Cooper fans won’t stop telling you about his size and route running. When you ask about his hands, they get mysteriously silent… until now! Amari Cooper, he of the horrendous 56.7% catch rate finally has gotten his act together and is catching 70% of his targets this year. That has done wonders for his production, as he’s on pace to have almost 20 yards per game more than last season with the highest catch total of his career. He isn’t getting many different targets, but he’s doing more with them. The wonders of the Gruden offense?
No, the real wonders of the Gruden offense is turning Jordy Nelson into a good wide receiver without Aaron Rodgers for the first time in his career. The big knock on Jordy entering the season was his performance sans Aaron Rodgers. He garnered the same amount of targets, but had fifteen fewer yards per game and caught 50% fewer touchdowns. Take a look at his last two games after starting off slow: He has 221 yards and two scores over the last two games on sixteen targets. Granted they were good matchups, but guess what, this is a transition.
The Chargers are a bad defense against wide receivers in fantasy football this season. They’ve yielded the fourth-most fantasy points to the position so far this year, including two touchdowns per game to the position this year.
Jordy Nelson and Amari Cooper have only gotten on the same page at the same time once this season: last week against the Cleveland Browns. This makes sense, as they are both entering a new system alongside Derek Carr. The three seem to have gotten their acts together and should produce from here-on-out. This week they get a good chance to be useful in back-to-back games this weekend as the Raiders take on a Chargers team that bleeds fantasy points to the wide receiver position. If you’re wondering if you should start or sit Amari Cooper, I say don’t sit your studs. Start him. If you’re wondering if you should start or sit Jordy Nelson, it depends on how desperate you are. If you’re trying to decide between him and other marginal WR2s, I would start Jordy Nelson this week.
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