Bijan Robinson Causes Headaches on Sunday 🙄

Pretty hilarious to think that the Bills have beaten the Dolphins but also lost to the Jets and the Patriots.

What’s in store:

• Deshaun Watson goes down… again. Based on what we’ve seen from him so far, he might not be back till Thanksgiving – and that might be a good thing.

• What to do with problem running backs after Week 7? Jahmyr Gibbs and Josh Jacobs are under the microscope.

• The Colts look like they might have two fantasy relevant wide receivers on their hands… Pittman and Downs have been on fire with Minshew at QB.

• Bijan Robinson had a headache and causes them for his fantasy managers. This will qualify as one of those ‘remember when?’ performances, for sure.

• Browns QB Deshaun Watson exits game with undisclosed injury, doesn’t return against Indianapolis

  • This is getting just a bit ridiculous with the embattled Browns quarterback, and we’ll continue to remind you that Cleveland handed him a fully guaranteed $230 million contract last year. Not only is Watson likely to have his status up in the air once again going into Week 8, but he’s been an objectively bad real life and fantasy football quarterback through seven weeks of play. That’s made the Browns receiving options really difficult to trust on a weekly basis, and things haven’t gotten better with P.J. Walker under center for the past two weeks. The fact that the Browns were able to hang around and win a shootout had a lot more to do with their defense playing spectacularly well than it did with the offense doing much of anything, and that’s a problem. No Browns pass catcher had more than 60 yards on the day, and it seems like even if Watson comes back, there isn’t much hope for improvement with their pass catchers for the rest of the season barring a dramatic turnaround.

• Packers rookie TE Luke Musgrave suffers ankle injury in loss to Broncos in Week 7

  • Add this injury to a laundry list of them that Musgrave has dealt with very early in his young career. The rookie has been in and out of the lineup with frequency, and therefore has struggled to get any run in the Packers’ passing attack so far this season. He was spotted after the game in a walking boot, which would indicate that the ankle injury could potentially be a serious one. Musgrave has likely spent most, if not all, of the 2023 season on the benches of fantasy teams, and the additional injury here that could be longer term than others he’s suffered makes Musgrave a potential drop candidate moving forward. He should not be held onto in favor of any of the top waiver wire adds this week.

• What to do with Josh Jacobs after another quiet performance?

  • I mean at this point I’d say we have to eat our vegetables with Josh Jacobs, because that’s just about what it’s felt like having him in your starting lineup, right? Seven weeks into the season, and nobody is excited to have him in their lineup, and understandably so. He’s really got us cornered with what we’ve seen from him so far, because his production hasn’t been anything close to what we came to expect to see from him after last year – but his utilization isn’t really bad at all, either. 16.8 expected points per game coming into this one ranks 9th in the NFL among all running backs. And given the game script in this one and the troubles at quarterback, I don’t think we can fault him in this game.

  • That being said, nobody is going to want to trade for him and you’re almost guaranteed to be taking a loss in any deal where you’re shipping him away, so to follow up on the analogy earlier, I think we just have to continue to sit at the dinner table and be served up the carrots and green beans that has been Josh Jacobs starts this season. You have to hold him. There’s a better chance that he can turn things around this season than there is in you being able to flip him in a trade for something better. I think we can start talking about him as more of an ideal RB2 start than a low-RB1 with upside moving forward, but there’s plenty of football left.

• Is it time to sell Jahmyr Gibbs after his first (and only) strong performance of 2023 so far?

  • As someone who’s got a lot of draft capital tied up in him this season, I’m definitely gonna cling to this performance as vindication for investing as much in him as I did. And I’m sure that’ll be the case for a lot of his managers this week too – you stuck it out while he was injured and didn’t have tons of production, and now he finally comes through. You almost don’t know what to do - but I think that there’s definitely some merit to the idea of selling him.

  • We’re coming up on the midway point in the season, and the only time Gibbs delivered came in a game where David Montgomery wasn’t playing, Craig Reynolds wasn’t healthy, and the Lions got completely boat raced. The point about the game script in this game isn’t as big of a concern for me as the fact that his competition in the backfield wasn’t there to compete with him - so of course his workload increased.

  • I think there are situations where Gibbs could catch six or seven passes even with Montgomery in the lineup, but that’s the problem: those games won’t happen nearly as often as games like we’ve seen from him these first few weeks, and it’s pretty clear that David Montgomery is the running back the Lions want on the field when he can play. I’d definitely field offers for him, but I don’t know if I’d be going around and shopping him because we do know that Gibbs has this type of performance in him.

  • I’d throw him on the trade block and just let everyone know that I’m willing to listen to trade offers - but if nobody bites and you aren’t getting solid compensation, I’d roll with him for another week. There’s a chance he could be even more valuable a week from today than he is now, and at that point we could be talking about him being a quality piece moving forward. But there’s nothing wrong with looking to sell right now.

• Is the Colts offense legit after that great performance against the Browns defense?

  • The game we were looking forward to the least happened to be the game that was the best in the early window. Gardner Minshew continues to breathe life into this Colts team - he keeps fumbling balls and commits turnovers, but he gives his guys a chance. He threw for 300 yards in 2 straight games, he ran 2 TDs in this week, and threw for another 2… and that allowed Josh Downs and Michael Pittman to get it done. Pittman didn’t get it going until that late 75 yard TD from Minshew, but he ultimately came through for you – and Josh Downs continues to see a high target share from Minshew. 26% target share against the Browns is completely legit, and he’s still available in a ton of leagues, so he’ll be a top waiver wire pickup this week once again.

  • And by the way, we’re still seeing a split in the Colts backfield - 50/50 split in terms of snaps, both had 18 carries, but JT saw 3 more targets. First big game we’ve seen from JT in a while though - 75 yards rushing a TD, with another 45 yards through the air… it seems like Zack Moss might continue to be startable as a flex.

0.3 fantasy points. That’s the total production that Bijan Robinson’s fantasy managers were blindsided with Sunday afternoon, and it came in a week where the Falcons were having all kinds of trouble moving the ball on offense. Kyle Pitts was able to do his best Robinson impression, catching a ball behind his back with one hand, but that was sweet little for managers who ended up with an unexpected bullet hole in their lineup.

Robinson saw just 11 snaps on the day while handling the ball just once for 3 yards. That lone touch came extremely late in the game, while teammates Tyler Allgeier and Cordarrelle Patterson split reps to pick up the slack in Robinson’s stead. Allgeier was the primary beneficiary of Robinson’s absence, as expected, handling 21 attempts on the ground and garnering 3 targets on the day. Patterson racked up 10 carries rotationally.

Robinson shouldn’t be immediately expected to miss any more time like he did against the Buccaneers moving forward, but monitor reports coming out of Atlanta this week ahead of the Falcons’ Week 8 matchup against the Titans. If Robinson wouldn’t be able to go for any reason, expect Allgeier to be bumped up into the RB2 conversation – but fantasy managers should assume for the time being that Robinson will be back to normal come next Sunday.