By ASHER JOHNSON
Tiger Media Network
Week two of the NFL season and – more importantly – fantasy football has concluded, and there are several takeaways managers can analyze in order to benefit fantasy football teams.
This week seemed to have a lot of injuries to high-caliber players, so here are five tips for managers to win your fantasy matchups this week.
- Grab any top Rams WR off of waiver wires. Cooper Kupp just got injured in LA’s Week two matchup against the Arizona Cardinals. Rams Head Coach Sean Mcvay says that he will miss “an extended period of time.” With Kupp being out for a long time and possibly going on Injured Reserve (minimum 4 weeks), and LA’s other wide receiver Puka Nacua also being on injured reserve, it leaves this wide receiver room open for a breakout player. Two players that I would highly recommend looking at are Demarcus Robinson, who is projected to be their WR1 and is only rostered in 57% of sleeper leagues. The second player I would try to pick up would be rookie Jordan Wittington who is only rostered in 6% of leagues. Wittington is more of a risk to take since he is only a rookie, but in preseason, Wittington led the team in targets, receptions, and receiving yards. He has proved himself that he can take a heavy workload and target share for this high powered Rams offense.
- Do not overreact to your star players not performing well. If you are someone who has Travis Kelce, Sam Laporta, JaMarr Chase, Mike Evans, etc. Throughout time we have seen that these types of players take time to adjust to either a new offense, head coach, or even just bad game matchups. For example, in Laporta’s case, after Detroits’ loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this week, Head Coach Dan Campbell told reporters that they need to get back to the offense they were playing last season. Near the end of the season last year, Laporta was averaging over five catches per game and around 60 yards as well. Do not trade away any of your star players this early in the season.
- This tip might be counterintuitive to my last one, but seek to trade away Tyreek Hill in a couple weeks. I know I just said to not trade away your star players, but with the situation in Miami, I do not expect Tyreek to thrive. The Dolphins just lost their quarterback Tua Tagovailoa to another concussion, his fourth concussion in his NFL career. If Tagovailoa does stay playing football and wants to continue throughout the season, then I say you hold onto Hill. On the other hand though, if Tagovailoa is not going to play for the rest of the season, I would explore my options in trading Hill. The last games that the Dolphins had a backup quarterback play, Tyreek Hill had games of 10 points,13 points, and recently a six-point game when Tagovailoa got hurt on Thursday night football.
- One thing about fantasy football that people may overlook is the production that rookie players get. Specifically rookie receivers and tight ends. Brock Bowers is currently the TE2 in fantasy through two weeks of football. When the Raiders have Bowers on the field, they tend to specifically make play designs just for him. With back-to-back weeks of having eight and nine targets and over five catches, this makes Bowers one of the best steals of the draft this season. I would try to package an RB2 and a flex player for Brock Bowers as I see him as a league winning player this year. As for receivers there are two to look out for – Malik Nabers for the Giants, who had a whopping 18 targets and 10 catches that produced almost 29 points and Marvin Harrison Jr. for the Cardinals who proved why he was a top-five pick in this year’s NFL draft. MHJ scored 29 points on only four receptions. If either of these players have a single bad week, I would try my best to try and trade for them when their stock falls.
- If you are in need of a quarterback that is consistent with points, I have the perfect one for you. Derek Carr from the Saints. Carr is averaging over 20 fantasy points per week. After week one I wasn’t too high on him, but after this week when putting up over 240 yards and two touchdowns against arguably a top five defense in the Cowboys. Derek Carr is available in over 75% of leagues on sleeper and picking up the quarterback with the best offense in the league right now will win you several weeks.
Fantasy football is hard to predict, but seeing the trends throughout the years and weeks can help you become the best player in your league!