Happy Wednesday everyone – we hope you were able to acquire all of the players you wanted to from the waiver wire today! Tune in to the most recent episode of the Upper Hand Fantasy Podcast: Faraz and Zach cover all of these picks in depth and recap last nights wild MNF game. Hit the link in bio or listen wherever you get your podcasts!

• Packers WR Romeo Doubs (concussion), RB Josh Jacobs (calf) both limited in Tuesday’s practice

  • Jacobs undoubtedly appears to be in better shape regarding his chances of playing in their high-stakes tilt against the Lions Thursday night, but Doubs still has some time to clear the league’s concussion protocol before game time. Jacobs has come on as a fantasy RB1 over his past six games, scoring 20+ PPR points in five of those contests. He doesn’t appear to be in any real danger of missing the game, but fantasy managers certainly can’t go wrong paying careful attention to his status in the final week of the regular season. Meanwhile, Doubs missed his first game of the season last week against the Dolphins and is in a race against time to clear the concussion protocol on a short week. With Doubs out last week, WR Dontayvion Wicks saw increased run with an 89% snap share while filling in. Should Doubs miss once again, Wicks would be in consideration as a boom/bust flex play. Jayden Reed received no such increase in playing time with Doubs out, so fantasy managers shouldn’t count on any considerable boost in his production if he misses. Practice reports available today and tomorrow will, of course, paint a clearer picture, but for the time being, Jacobs appears to be trending in the right direction while Doubs is stuck in a holding pattern with his concussion.

• Commanders RB Austin Ekeler says that he’s ‘week-to-week’ with concussion suffered late in Week 12

  • What this essentially amounts to is that Ekeler is unlikely to suit up this week and his status for the rest of the season is certainly up in the air. Ekeler had another concussion earlier this season and reportedly suffered memory loss then and as a reuslt of his most recent collision, which is obviously not a good sign. Until further notice, fantasy managers should view the Commanders’ backfield without Ekeler in the picture and proceed as though Brian Robinson is the clear RB to start. If Ekeler does wind up missing extended time or even the rest of the year, fantasy managers would be well served to scoop up RB Jeremy McNichols from the waiver wire. McNichols was outproduced by career backup Chris Rodriguez last week when Rodriguez handled mop-up duty for Washington, but stands a much better chance of rotating in with Brian Robinson in Kliff Kingsbury’s offense given that he’s done that a few times before this year. Regardless of whether it’s been Robinson or Ekeler out of the lineup, Kingsbury has leaned on the two-headed approach this year – and that could make McNichols a solid flex play moving forward. The Commanders have their bye this week, but assuming Ekeler doesn’t return for Week 15, Robinson will be a strong RB2 when he takes the field again against the Saints.

Ladd McConkey squeezes out what he can

Despite Justin Herbert underperforming and throwing for only 147 yards (we can probably thank Kirk Cousins’ four interceptions), McConkey commandeered 117 of those yards on 9 catches. His 52% target share in this game is absolutely absurd. We’re seeing a breakout happening before our eyes. McConkey had a knee injury late in the game we should monitor. With six teams on bye next week, McConkey will likely be a high-end WR2 against the Chiefs.

Parker Washington steps into full-time role

Trevor Lawrence suffered a concussion relatively early in the game, which surrounded his receivers to Mac Jones. Brian Thomas Jr suffered greatly, as he got open multiple times for a TD where he couldn’t get an accurate ball, but finally scored towards the end of the game. Meanwhile, Washington led the Jaguars in targets with Lawrence and without, leading to a 6/103/1 line on 12 targets. He ran the most routes of any Jaguars WR at a 91% route participation. He’s a solid waiver wire pickup this week.

Anthony Richardson does enough for Colts and for fantasy

Richardson didn’t provide us with any usable fantasy WR this week, but he ended up totaling three TDs, including the game-winning red zone TD to Alec Pierce on 4th down and a two-point conversion run. Without Josh Downs, Pittman led with a 30% target share, followed by Alec Pierce with 26%. Adonai Mitchell, whose playing time benefitted the most without Downs, had an extremely disappointing donut on only two targets, dropping multiple potential touchdowns. If Richardson can improve just a bit in the pass game, he’s capable of having a monster fantasy season. Not sure I’d want to start him in Denver after his bye, but he’s startable in Weeks 16 and 17 against the Titans and Giants.

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Blake Corum has his best game so far

Corum has been stealing a drive from Kyren Williams early in games for the past several games, but the drive that he was in on had success (a lot due to him) so he stayed in and kept getting fed with 5 carries on that drive alone. Corum did come in on other series’, but those drives didn’t have the same amount of success. Since that early drive, Corum was out-carried by Williams 14-3, and Kyren ended up going over 100 rushing yard on the day and scoring. Kyren saw all the passing down work and goal line work in this one, but his 68% snap share was the lowest of the season.

Bryce Young continuing to look… good

If you haven’t been paying attention, it’s easy to overlook how Bryce Young has looked over the past few weeks, but we’e seen an extremely notable improvement from where he was at earlier this year. He’s had multiple receivers become fantasy relevant, and it seems like Adam Thielen is here to stay for the rest of the year after he earned a team-leading 25% of targets to an impressive 8/99/1 (should’ve been 2 TDs) performance. Thielen has a tough matchup against Philly next week, but he’ll likely be in the upside WR3 conversation. It’s also worth noting that with Ja’Tavion Sanders out, TE Tommy Tremble is a full-time receiver (100% of snaps) and had a 8/5/77 line on Sunday.