Garrett Wilson Has Been Staying Alive in New York! 🍎

Sure would be nice to know if I should be expecting to be without Josh Downs this week. Been radio silence so far this week.

What’s in store:

• Carson Wentz to LA! That’s it, that’s the headline. Hopefully we don’t have to see too much of him this season.

• Will Levis is the starter moving forward in Tennessee! ⚔️ Thank God.

• Time to buy this AFC North QB? It might not be who you think, but the price might be as low as it’s going to be right now.

• Garrett Wilson is staying afloat in the Jets’ quicksand. See how he’s been managing to stay fantasy relevant this season!

• Bears RB Khalil Herbert practices in full on Tuesday, has a chance to be active for Thursday night vs Panthers

  • Herbert has officially completed his mandatory 4-game hiatus after being placed on IR and he should have a good shot to be active against the Panthers to kick off Week 10. While Herbert was gone, it was D’Onta Foreman - not Roschon Johnson - that took advantage of the increased opportunity, and Foreman is likely to share backfield duties with Herbert in his first game back. Given that this will be Herbert’s first game back, there’s a chance that Foreman sees more snaps than Herbert as the Bears work him back from injury - but Herbert should be expected to gain the edge in workload by Week 11 in that scenario. Both players will be flex candidates in a matchup against a Panthers defense allowing the second-most fantasy points to the RB position.

• Free Agent QB Carson Wentz signed by the Rams ahead of Week 10 bye as backup

  • Ask anybody and they’ll tell you that this signing came a week too late. It’s not so much that Carson Wentz is that good of a quarterback - he’s not - but he’s many steps ahead of what the Rams fielded last week in Brett Rypien as a backup. The Rams are heading into their bye in Week 10 which should give Wentz plenty of time to get back up to speed and learn the playbook, but ideally the Rams won’t have to trot their free agent acquisition out onto the field at SoFi Stadium any time soon with Stafford reportedly on track to be healthy for Week 11. There’s still plenty of time between today and next Sunday, and we see setbacks all the time as players recover from injuries, so Wentz could be worth a flier in some of the deeper 2QB leagues just in case Stafford needs an extra week to heal up. The expectation should be, though, that Wentz doesn’t see any meaningful time under center unless Stafford would be hurt again.

• Titans rookie QB Will Levis named starting quarterback moving forward

  • Big sigh of relief moving forward as the strong-armed rookie will continue to start for a Titans offense that has lacked explosiveness with Tannehill under center. The Derrick Henry lipstick that the Titans have been applying to their pig of an offense wasn’t fooling anyone into believing Tennessee’s offense could stay afloat on a weekly basis, and Will Levis gives them their best shot at returning the likes of DeAndre Hopkins and co. to fantasy relevance. Levis cooled down last Thursday after coming out of the gate on fire, but his third start will be against a Buccaneers defense that was just gashed for 470 passing yards and five touchdowns by another rookie AFC South signal caller in C.J. Stroud. We’re not superstitious and you shouldn’t be either, but Levis presents low QB1 upside moving forward with a low QB2 floor.

• SELL WR Jahan Dotson, WAS

  • Chances are you didn’t have him in your lineup two weeks ago when finished as the WR6 on the week with 25 fantasy points, but you might have had him in your lineup this week when he finished as the WR9 on the week with 17. I’m a big Dotson guy, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Dotson’s two best weeks have come with Curtis Samuel either out of the lineup entirely like he was in Week 9 or only playing part of the game like he did in Week 8 when he went down with the foot injury in the first place.

  • Before that in Weeks 1-7: 16% target share for Dotson, no more than five catches in any of those games, and zero top-24 finishes. Now, Sam Howell has been as advertised - he’s slinging it with 40 or more attempts in four of his past five games. The Commanders are pass first, but not Dotson first when it comes to who’s getting the ball, and even when Dotson does get the ball, he’s just not doing enough with it in his hands. After averaging 4.26 yards after the catch last season, he’s down to 2.38 this season; the same goes for his yards after contact per reception, down from 1.51 in 2022 to 0.85 this year.

  • With Curtis Samuel potentially returning soon, I wanna move out from a player who had zero value two weeks ago and turn Dotson into something that’s going to help me on a playoff run. 

  BUY WR Adam Thielen, CAR

  • Today on “things that won’t happen every week, or very often at all for that matter”: both Chuba Hubbard and Miles Sanders each earning 14+% target share. That’s happened just twice all season, and Thielen is officially on his longest streak of games this season without scoring a touchdown (2 games).

  • He’s finished as the WR24 and WR42 over the past two weeks, and he has his fewest targets in a game against the Colts and Kenny Moore. Lucky for Thielen, he won’t have to face Kenny Moore every week - he’s got a strong enough track record this season for us to give him the benefit of the doubt after two down performances in the game log. He’s still averaging a 28% target share and 30% air yards share, but he’s definitely worth a heat check to whoever’s got him in your league because the Panthers offense goes as he goes.

  • He’s got two solid matchups in the next three weeks, but a date with Dallas is less than ideal - who knows though, maybe he can pull a Garrett Wilson and score a long touchdown against Dallas to salvage his day in that one.

  BUY QB Lamar Jackson, BAL

  • Put simply, Lamar is suffering from success. It’s the same phenomenon we saw with Dak Prescott earlier this season against the Giants, Jets, and Patriots when he averaged 12 points per game in three blowout wins. Would you believe that he’s finished outside the top-15 in three out of the past five games? He’s quietly scored just six total touchdowns over the past five games, and he’s the QB16 in that span.

  • Now, Lamar’s averaging 17 points per game as the QB16, which is pretty damn good - there’s a good chance that whoever has him hasn’t noticed that significant drop in production from the first four weeks when he was averaging just under 22 points per game. But Lamar’s got some matchups on tap in the next few weeks that should be much more competitive than last week’s drubbing against the Seahawks, including games against the Browns, Bengals, and Chargers. Those touchdowns that have been appearing in Gus Edwards’ game log over the past few weeks because of positive game scripts? They should be making their way back over to Lamar’s, and the price for Jackson is as low as it’s going to be moving forward - especially with the trade deadline approaching in a lot of leagues.

  • If you could turn a Jared Goff or Trevor Lawrence into a Lamar, I’d be really interested in making that upgrade to help put my team over the top to make a run at the playoffs.

Since Aaron Rodgers went down just four snaps into the 2023 season, Garrett Wilson has been out here fighting for his life to remain a fantasy relevant wide receiver with Zach Wilson under center. The returns through the first five weeks of the season were mixed, with the standout second year receiver catching five or fewer passes in all but one of his games - but in his last three games, Wilson has suddenly become the focal point of the Jets’ offensive attack. While that switch hasn’t been reflected in the W/L column, fantasy managers have enjoyed three straight weeks of relatively solid production given the circumstances.

Two things have been consistent with Zach Wilson under center – the Jets offense struggling, and Garrett Wilson getting plenty of targets. Wilson’s 31.4% target share since Week 6 ranks third in the NFL among all wide receivers, trailing just Ceedee Lamb and Tyreek Hill in that span while ranking higher than his fellow AFC East pass catcher Stefon Diggs and Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Further, Wilson has seen target totals of 12, 13, and 13 in his past three games. The target share has not been a mirage like those we’ve seen historically in offenses like Tennessee’s (five targets with Ryan Tannehill under center was enough to amount to a 25% target share), as the Jets have been dropping Zach Wilson back to pass at the highest rate (71%) of any team since Week 6!

What does this prove? It proves that once Aaron Rodgers is healthy, Garrett Wilson is going to be a fantasy monster. Until then, though, we’re going to have to ride out the Zach Wilson storm.