For some of us, this will be the last week of fantasy football until next September. It will be the culmination of every move, every hunch, and every bit of research that we did this year. But we should aim to keep this ball rolling at least one more week. If you’re in dire straits, then check out the guys below, all of whom are available in at least 50% of Yahoo! leagues. For those of you in deeper leagues, we have a player available in at least 90% of leagues to wet your whistle.
QUARTERBACKS
J.J. McCarthy versus Washington (30% rostered)
Look, I don’t like it either, but you can’t look past the fact that at one point this season, he had won all the NFC Offensive Player of the Week awards. The man also known as Nine has proven that he isn’t an outstanding quarterback, but luckily for him, his backup is quite possibly the worst quarterback on the face of the earth, throwing McCarthy back into the driver’s seat.
McCarthy hasn’t been good lately, putting up 6.48 fantasy points in his last two games combined, but he’s shown that he can take advantage of tomato can defenses, posting 22 points against those Bears in week one and 19 against the Lions in week nine. Washington is a top-three matchup on the week, allowing 16+ fantasy points to quarterbacks in six of their last seven games.
Should McCarthy play well, this is also a stretch of top-four matchups that extends all the way until the fantasy football finals, but none as good as this week against the Commanders. This will also lift the tides for guys like Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison, as the Commanders rank seventh in wide receiver matchups this week.
Tyrod Taylor versus Miami (12% rostered)
Tyrod Taylor has quietly been putting up numbers in his three starts. In those games, he’s finished as a top-ten quarterback twice, and never bottomed out, finishing as WR17 against Baltimore. A lot of this has to do with his rushing prowess, as he had 44 or more rushing yards in two of those three games, which provides him with that indomitable floor. He has also produced touchdowns and preserved the football, finishing with five touchdowns and two picks in those three starts. The Dolphins provide the fourth-best matchup of the week, which means that they are unlikely to put up much of a fight for Taylor en route to his third QB1 week in his four starts.
Tyler Shough at Tampa Bay (8% rostered)
The Buccaneers are a neutral matchup in my per-pass model, but they are fifth in fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks. They have allowed 18 or more fantasy points to quarterbacks, including Jacoby Brissett, notching 19.64 fantasy points last week on a 301/2/1 line with sixteen rushing yards. The Buccos have allowed multiple touchdowns to quarterbacks in all four games, as well. Shough should get similar rushing as Brissett last week, as he has 40 yards rushing in the previous two games. He also has a nice floor with his passing yardage, as he’s topped 240 passing yards in three straight starts. Shough also has 17+ fantasy points in two of three games, and in those games, he threw for multiple touchdowns.
WIDE RECEIVERS
Jayden Higgins at Kansas City (39% rostered)
The rookie receiver is evolving into a higher volume player for the Texans over the last month or so, where he has 0.26 targets per route run in the previous five weeks. To put that in context, Nico Collins has a 0.27 targets per route run in the same time frame. In the last three games, however, Nico maintained his 0.27 targets per route run, and Higgins bumped his up over Collins to a 0.30 targets per route run, where he’s averaging seven targets per game. This isn’t about the Chiefs, who are a neutral matchup in most respects in the passing game. This is a lot like Chris Rodriguez last week: get in while the getting is good, before everyone else notices.
John Metchie versus Miami (9% rostered)
Everyone is chasing Adonai Mitchell after his huge game last week, but I am going back to the guy who is far more reliable and far more likely to have a good game in this one. Metchie dropped a touchdown last week, but he had a touchdown in three-straight games before that, and he had fifteen targets for ten catches in the previous two games.
I also straight-up don’t trust Adonai Mitchell. Last week was his first game with more than three catches this year, and Metchie has been far more reliable an option. Mitchell is also the deep threat, mostly garnering 20+ yard targets (18.4 average depth of target with the Jets). The Dolphins don’t give up those types of plays. They have seen the eighth-fewest 20+ air yard targets, and are allowing the thirteenth-lowest catch rate on such targets (36.6), which leads to the third-lowest 30.4 receiving yards per game, and the seventh-lowest yards per route run allowed on 20+ air yard targets.
Devaughn Vele at Tampa Bay (8% rostered)
With Rasheed Shahid off to Seattle, the Saints needed a WR2, and found it in the form of Devaughn Vele, who has 15 targets in the last two games (seven targets two weeks ago, and eight last week), which he’s turned into 130 yards and a touchdown. Since their week nine bye, nine wide receivers have at least seven targets against the Buccaneers, and six of them have at least 12.9 PPR points. This has been an issue for the Buccaneers all season long: 14 receivers reached seven targets against them, and 12 have at least 12.9 PPR points.
RUNNING BACKS
Chris Rodriuez at Minnesota (35% rostered)
Once again, we have a roster rate that is not commensurate with his role as the RB1 in this offense. Rodriguez entirely took over as the RB1 in Washington, playing the most snaps for the second week in a row. While Rodriguez did not top 50% of snaps in either of the last two games, the Jacory Croskey-Merritt role is quickly diminishing to nothing, and Jeremy McNichols is likely to end up as the third-down role. He’s earned this job, as he has at least 80 yards or a touchdown in five of his last six games. The Vikings’ defense is in disarray against the run. This year, they’ve given up the fewest fantasy points to running backs, but in my per-touch model, they are a top-ten matchup.
Samaje Perine at Buffalo (14% rostered)
The Buffalo Bills are a nightmare in run defense, as they allow the fourth-most fantasy points per game to the position, and they are first in my fantasy points per-touch model. They are simply disastrous at stopping the running back, allowing 4.2 yards after contact, the most in the league, and the only team allowing more than four yards after contact. Perine is the RB2, but he seems to be far more involved now. He returned from injury last week, and he finished with fourteen carries, just one fewer than Chase Brown. This is the continuation of a trend, as he had double-digit touches in his final game before the one he left with an injury.
Jerome Ford versus Tennessee (9% rostered)
It’s looking increasingly likely that there will not be any Dylan Sampson in this one, after he left last week in the third quarter with an injury. Last week, Jerome Ford filled in and had three touches in a quarter, as he is the running back equivalent of Flex Seal, filling whatever cracks in the running game the Browns might have. He’s likely to end with double-digit touches against the woeful Titans defense, who are the #2 running back matchup of the week. Ford has double-digit touches just one other time this season, and it resulted in him finishing with over 10 PPR points. He’s not the most thrilling, but he’s a perfectly cromulent one-week patch on the edge of the fantasy playoffs.
TIGHT END
Harold Fannin Jr. versus Tennessee (37% rostered)
Harold Fannin is the Cleveland Browns’ WR1, full stop. Jerry Jeudy has disappeared and has spent the last two games committing wild turnovers and fighting with Shedeur Sanders on the sideline. Fannin, on the other hand, leads the team in targets per route run instead. He’s having a great rookie year held down by touchdown luck, as he is eighth in tight end targets and tenth in tight end yardage. The Titans are not a great matchup on paper, but their defense is breaking down in the home stretch. They’ve given up 11.1 or more PPR points to three of the last four tight ends to play against them (Dalton Schultz, Brenton Strange, and Oronde Gadsden).
Darren Waller at New York Jets (35% rostered)
Waller returned last week to lead the Dolphins in receiving yards. He did it on just three targets, but he is a bona fide downfield target for the Dolphins. He has a 12.5 average depth of target, which is the highest among tight ends with at least fifteen targets. On the season, he has four touchdowns in four games. The Jets are eighteenth in fantasy points allowed to tight ends, but that’s because teams aren’t throwing to the tight end. When they do, they succeed, as they are third in my per-target model; if the Dolphins focus on Waller as their #3 target (behind Jaylen Waddle and De’Von Achane), he will produce against this Jets defense.
Dawson Knox versus Cincinnati (3% rostered)
Dalton Kincaid has missed four weeks with a knee injury and is still hampered by it this week in practice. The Bengals are the worst tight end defense in the entire NFL, by a wide margin. They allow 23.0 fantasy points per game to tight ends. The #2 team, the Jacksonville Jaguars, allows just 17.4 PPR points per game. That 5.6 PPR difference is the same as the Jaguars and the New York Giants, who allow 11.8 PPR points per game, which ranks 22nd in the league. They are just leaps and bounds worse than everyone else, so if you have a chance to see five tight end targets against them, you take it.
