Transcription
Today, we are breaking down the seven must-start players across all positions for this week in fantasy football. And week 10 is a very important week because the playoff chase is starting right now. We're about a month away from the fantasy postseason. You have to win in week 10.
So let's start with Tedo McMillan. I've been getting a lot of questions about the top 10 overall pick, the rookie out of Arizona in Ted McMillan for the Carolina Panthers. This is a guy who continues, continues, whether it's Andy Dalton for a week, Bryce Young playing good, or Bryce Young not playing good, to just see strong volume. 7.7 targets per game is 12th in the NFL. Again, this is a rookie. If you just break it down every single week right now, I mean, it's consistent. It's not like these spikes in targets. 9, 10, 8. It is so consistent. 8, 10, six, right? Even this past week or these past couple of weeks where he's had poor play or they're leaning on the run more. 17 fantasy point game. Nine-point game is not great, but it's a game where they ran the ball non-stop, 25 times alone with Rico Dole on the ground.
Now, the fact that he's only averaging 10 fantasy points per game has a lot to do with the fact that he's just not finding the end zone. He had a multi-touchdown game earlier this year, but for the most part this season, he hasn't found the end zone compared to how much he should based on his targets. But that just means he's probably a candidate for positive regression. And this week, he has a nice matchup against the New Orleans Saints, a Saints team that currently ranks 18th overall when it comes to their secondary. They're allowing right now 18 touchdowns. If we go over to NFL Pro, 18 passing touchdowns this year, you can see right here, is sixth most in the NFL. They're allowing a strong completion rate. Basically, every part of the Saints defense, whether it's tackling where they're dead last, so after the catch, production is going to be there for McMillan. Everywhere you look, is a good matchup for Tech. And I apologize, he doesn't want to be called Tetamo no more, so we'll call him T-Mac. Mr. T-Mac this week will go up against these quarterbacks for the Saints, assuming they're all healthy. And we could see the snap leaders. Kool-Aid McKinstry ranks 75th out of 107 graded quarterbacks according to PFF. Uh Quincy Riley is going to be mostly a slot quarterback and you're going to have Alante Taylor who ranks 62nd. There is not a single, a single Saints quarterback on their roster right now who's going to be a starter who's going to be playing this weekend and facing off at times in man and zone coverage against Tedo McMillan that ranks in the top half of the league. Their quarterback play is not good. In fact, we just saw this same team get torched, albeit against a good quarterback in Matthew Stafford and good wide receivers in Pukanua, seven catches, 95 yards and a touchdown despite leaving that game early with injury. Devonte Adams, five catches, 60 yards, two red zone touchdowns as well. Right. Even a rookie tight end, Terence Ferguson had 54 receiving yards for a guy who's been mostly quiet this year against that Saints secondary, those quarterbacks, even their linebackers when it comes to some of those zone coverages in the in the tight ends that we talked about. So, it's a good matchup overall for Tedo McMill.
You look at what the game environment is going to be, it's probably not going to be the greatest game environment. If you look at it right here, according to DraftKings Sportsbooks, our lovely partners, DraftKings, you can see over/under of just 39 and a half. So, not really expecting a lot of scoring here. The uh Panthers are five and a half point favorites in this game. So, we're going to probably have to see a lot of first-half production hopefully out of Tedo McMillan, but if indeed they are going to be leading by a touchdown, there's probably a decent chance that they're going to rely on their best players, Rico Doto, Tedo McMillan. So, I have the Panthers rookie wide receiver. Believe it or not, as of this recording and we'll do a final update to the fantasy blueprint, all the rankings and and flex plays for this weekend on Sunday. But as of right now, as a top 12 wide receiver on the week.
Let's switch to the running back position where now I want to talk about Kenneth Walker. Kenneth Walker who, my oh my, I get it, it's been frustrating. You probably drafted Kenneth Walker in the fourth round of your fantasy draft. And oh my goodness, if you did, it has been so frustrating because if we just look at his game logs, I mean, outside of the first couple of weeks where Zack Charbet was dealing with some injuries and Kenneth Walker had a long touchdown run and he was a top 10 running back in back-to-back weeks, basically since then, this last month has been rough. The last four games for him, nine fantasy points, 4.7, 6.6, 8.1. During that stretch the past month, I mean, the guy is barely averaging 6 and a half fantasy points per game. That's not great. And when you look at his most recent performance, you might come out here and be like, "Okay, he only had 11 carries. That's not all that encouraging this past week in a good matchup when they played with a massive lead against Washington." But the good thing was played a season-high 57% of the snaps. Even more importantly, he played a season-high 57% of the snaps in a game where they led by three to four scores the whole time and they easily didn't have to have him out there. I bring that up because the narrative this season has been that they're trying to save Kenneth Walker because Zack Sharon has just been spelling him so Walker can stay healthy. And that's true, but this is the exact time where you actually unleash him. When you're down the stretch hoping to be a buy in the real-life playoffs and for your fantasy playoffs, it means Walker could get some more usage. And the interesting thing is that you can see right here, the first six games of the season when Zack Charbanet and Kenneth Walker played together, snaps inside the 5yd line, it was all going to Zack Charbanet. He had 14 carries inside the five. He was their goal-line back compared to just one for Kenneth Walker in week nine. And it is just a one-game sample, but in week nine, according to Jared Smalla over on Twitter, be sure to follow him. Walker had four of those carries compared to just one for Zack Charbanet. Now, you could say maybe it was just the way that the drives were going, but in the past, we've literally seen Kenneth Walker subbed out for Zack Charbanet. Even on Kenneth Walker's birthday a couple of weeks ago, they subbed him out and Charbanet scored a touchdown, right? So, maybe this is a trend that we should pay attention to.
Now, this week, Kenneth Walker is a home 6 and a half point favorite against the Arizona Cardinals. So, not only is he a touchdown and a half favorite, which is great for running backs in general, he should see somewhere around a dozen plus opportunities on the ground. He's also facing a Cardinals defense that over the past month has allowed a touchdown to Tony Pard as you can see right here. Has allowed 123 yards and a touchdown to Jonathan Taylor, has allowed 55 yards and multiple touchdowns to Josh Jacobs. So, running backs have been getting there over the past month. Even ones obviously the great ones like Jonathan Taylor, solid ones like Josh Jacobs, but even the ones who have basically struggled in every other matchup this year like Tony Pard. That's encouraging for Kenneth Walker. So, you want to start Walker. He's currently a top 20 running back for me this week.
And you also want to start Quinton Johnston, who is somebody that as everybody has been kind of all out on Quinton Johnston, I was saying, why don't we actually give this guy a break? He suffered a hamstring injury, which most wide receivers miss two to four plus weeks. He only missed one and then he clearly played injured two weeks after that. How do I know he was clearly injured? Well, just watch his tape on anything you want to, a replay, NFL pro, whatever you want to go watch his routes compared to the first four weeks to five weeks of the season and then when he was hurt coming off of that hamstring. But this past week, he finally got going again. Four catches, 53 yards, a touchdown. He had another nice fantasy performance of 15 plus fantasy points for you and he looked like the version of the wide receiver we saw the first month of the season when he was actually a top 10 fantasy asset. It wasn't that long ago. It was literally just four weeks ago that he was producing 19.8 fantasy points per game on nine targets per game and 84 receiving yards per game. Since then in four games, including of which two one that he left early with a hamstring and two that he wasn't clearly fully back from, just 8.8 points per game on 30 receiving yards per game. He had a goose egg in one of those games, no yards as well. But I will say obviously Vlad Makoni the first month of the season wasn't going to keep producing that poorly, but Keenan Allen isn't producing like he once was. So I do think there is some room now for Quinton Johnson, especially downfield, to start to become a more consistent force like we saw in the first half of the year. And this is the perfect matchup to do it. He's taking on the Pittsburgh Steelers, who they ranked number one right here, and that's not a good thing. They allow the most passing yards per game. 278.3 passing yards per game the Steelers are allowing right now. I mean, we've seen I mean, even as recent as like the Jordan Love, Aaron Rogers, the Packers Steelers uh game that they faced in Pittsburgh on Sunday night a couple of days ago. Jordan Love had like the best game of his career, arguably one of the best against the Steelers defense. And then a week later, he's struggling against the Panthers. The get-right spot, everybody knows the Cowboys are a get-right spot, the Bengals. But very quietly, the get-right spot for like any offense, any positional player on offense has been the Pittsburgh Steelers this year, especially in the passing attack. So yes, good spot for Justin Herbert, great spot for Lad Mani and Arande Gatson. All should be in your starting lineups, but the same is true for Quinton Johnson. He should also be in that starting lineup. This game, surprisingly, is projected for a decent amount of points compared to some of the other games on the week. Right now, according to DraftKings Sportsbook, it's projected to have 50 or 45 and a half points with the Chargers being at home as three-point favorites. So, they're expected to score a little bit higher points there. Somewhere around 24 to 25 points as a team this week. That's very solid. So, nice spot overall. Quinton Johnson does indeed belong in your lineup.
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Next up, let's go to the tight end position now. And I want to talk about Kada and one of the sneakier tight end starts this week. I would consider him as of this recording a top 10 tight end on the week. He's coming out of his bye week and basically over the last two years now, mostly last year and a little bit this year when Chris Godwin and Mike Evans are out, which they're going to be out this week. Kottton is a focal point for Baker Mayfield and the Bucks offense. We now have a six-game sample the past two years where there's no Evans and Godwin. And in those games, Kottton has averaged eight and a half targets per game and over 12 fantasy points per game. During that stretch, he's been a borderline top five fantasy tight end. And as I mentioned, so far this week, you could see the beginning of the injury reports on Wednesday. Who's on that list right now? Chris Goblin, the fibula still not practicing. Bucky Irving still not practicing out of the bye. The thoughts would be that maybe he would and Mike Evans remains out for a very long time. So basically, it looks like the trend is right now is that no Mike Evans, probably no Chris Godwin, and probably no Bucker. Kottton's going to have to take on a lot of the responsibility in those short to middle parts of the field. And he's going to get to do it in a in a solid matchup. It's not a tough matchup. It's not a great matchup. It's just a solid enough matchup for a solid enough player. And I think that that's fine. He's taking on the New England Patriots who currently allow 14th most passing yards per game. So, middle of the pack team. They're also middle of the pack in touchdowns allowed. 224 passing yards per game, 15 touchdowns so far on the season. So, it's just basically an average secondary. 11th overall in play according to PFF. So maybe from like a grade standpoint they're slightly above average, but from what they've given up this year, they're a little bit below average. But the big thing here is that both these offenses, Drake May and the Patriots offense and Baker Mayfield and what's left of the Tampa Bay Bucks offenses and skill players, they could put up points. The total this week is one of the highest, the third highest. It's kind of bouncing around on some sites. It's like the second highest total on the week at 48 and a half points. 48 and a half points where the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are home favorites of two and a half points. They're projected to score somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 to 26 points this week on offense. And I mean, you look around and yeah, Amecha Ibuka, the first round rookie wide receiver is out there, but then it's Sterling Shepard, TZ Johnson, Kate actually looks like somebody who can go out there and see a seven-plus target game, which is good enough in my opinion to be a top 10 tight end this week.
Let's talk about another player who you probably didn't think was going to be in this video, but Parker Washington, the Jacksonville Jaguars, former sixth-round pick. I mean, we have to kind of give it up for this guy. Very quietly in their last two games with a buy in between there, though he has led this team in targets and now we're looking at a situation where Travis Hunter remains on IR. Who knows when he'll be back. There's some reports that it'll be after IR. There's some that it won't be till closer to the NFL playoffs. Diami Brown is dealing with a concussion. He's missing practices. Brian Thomas, they're saying, has a low like the the least severe high ankle sprain you'll ever see. That probably means he's missing multiple weeks. And Jacobe Myers though he was traded to the team, he only has like five or so days, three days of practice to get acclimated. If he does play, it'll probably be a limited playbook. So for this week specifically, you go down and you look at it, Parker Washington, he's going to be the starting slot wide receiver who's already been seeing like 20 targets over his last two games. And then what? Tim Patrick, if he's back from injury, they really have nobody else on this team. Practice squad players, like we're going to have to see who they call up. If they call up anybody, maybe Jacobe Myers only goes out there and plays 15 to 20 snaps. It's going to be Parker Washington just stealing a bunch of underneath targets again. Just a reminder, the last time we saw him, he had a very impressive game. A game good enough to be picked up in all 12-team formats and even some 10-team formats if you're dealing with byes. Eight catches, 90 yards, 17 fantasy points in a PPR format. Clearly the number one option on this team, both from a reception, production, and target standpoint. And now over his last two games, he's running 90% of the routes and leading the team with a 28% target share. Of course, during that time, Travis Hunter has been hurt. Brian Thomas has been hurt with both shoulder and now an ankle injury. But during this time, pretty clear favorite target for Trevor Lawrence has been Parker Washington. Even dating back to his rookie year in 2023, towards this towards the end of that year, he was producing. Last year when called upon, he produced. And this year, right now, he's producing in a major way. And we already have confirmation from Liam Cole, the head coach, that Parker Washington will continue to operate from the slot, which means that when Jacobe Myers is able to play, if it is this week in limited snaps, he'll be on the outside. That is very important because Liam Comb dating back to his years on other teams, whether it was Tampa Bay with Chris Goblin, whether it was years before that with the Rams and Cooper Cup, Liam Con's offense is I believe Wandel Robinson in college as well at Kentucky. Liam Col's offense, if you're out of the slot, you're a priority in this offense. That's why Parker Washington, in my opinion, is a player that has to be in your lineups this week. He's at least a flex option.
Next situation we got to talk about is the Bears backfield. And basically the simple way to think about this is whoever is active for the Bears this week, start them. So if DeAndre Swift is active, start him and comment on guy still flex. If Swift is out, will commun a slam dunk play? Either way, you want to start Common Guy. He'll either be an obvious start for you or a flex option if Swift is active. And if Swift is indeed playing, you got to start him as well as a borderline top 10 RB this week because this Bears offense has gone full-on into the run and it's been working the past month since they basically exited their bye week. Now, the best matchup they're going to have is this week. I mean, maybe it was last week, right? The Cincinnati Bengals, maybe it was last week. They gave up 166 rushing yards per game, but part of that was because Kanungai had 178 last week, so that inflated it. But the New York Giants, 150 rushing yards per game, 12 rushing touchdowns this season, which is also so 150 rushing yards per game is the second most in the league. 12 rushing touchdowns right now is the second most in the league. They allow the second most rushing production only to the Bengals, who oh yeah, last week you got a dominant performance out of the Bears running game against the Bengals. You're probably going to get another one this week. The last two matchups for the New York Giants, it's been against elite running backs. But by the way, Saquon Barkley hasn't really had any strong games this year. Oh yeah, he faces the Giants 14 carries, 150 yards. Has his strong game. Christian McAffrey has been great all year long, but basically he's only had like one other good game on the ground. 28 carries, 106 rushing yards the last two games against the Giants. Now you're bringing in a Bears rushing attack that is like arguably the hottest right now. Like trending up the most is their rushing offense. Whether it was Manungai last week or let's not forget how good DeAndre Swift has been in his last two to three games when healthy. DeAndre Swift, the last three games we've seen him from weeks 6 to 8, is averaging over 20 fantasy points per game, according to Roto of his game split tools. When you look at his receiving yards of 35 and rushing yards of 92 yards per game, this guy is almost averaging 125 to 130 yards per game over the last month of the season that he has been active. So whether it's Swift, whether it's Kungai, whoever is suiting up, they are a play for you this week. And it's a pretty nice matchup as well because outside of it being the Giants, the Bears are actually four and a half point home favorites. So, an offense that clearly has shown they want to run the ball the last 3 to four weeks. Now, they're going to be in a position based on the matchup and the game environment of being at home as favorites where they likely will be able to lean on the run in positive to neutral game scripts right from kickoff all the way through the fourth quarter. This is a really good spot to lean on these Bears RBs and make sure they're in your lineup.
Now, we've talked about a bunch of different positions here, but if you want to see my number one must-start player for this week at every single position, this guy, these guys, they have to be in your lineup. You can check it out completely free with the link in the description below or by heading to fantasyfootstarts.com. That is fantasyfootstarts.com. That will take you to this page where you just come in here, you enter your email, you click send me the starts, and then I will end up sending you the starts a couple of minutes later. And from there, you will basically be given to this page where you can just learn a little bit more about what's going to happen next steps. Pretty much summed up to say you're going to get it in your email. If you don't see it in the next one, three, five minutes, just check your spam and promotional folders. And again, to get access to that link in the description below or you can head to fantasyfootstarts.com.
Let's go back to a guy who is a must-start. At this point, it should be pretty obvious for you, but I've seen some teams since Rico Do we're talking about, by the way, for the audio listeners, the former undrafted pick for the Dallas Cowboys or signed free agent undrafted. Basically, Rico Dole is a must, but I've seen some offenses and some in some teams that people have shown me in fantasy. You pick them up off the waivers, you have maybe Christian McCaffrey, Jonathan Taylor, a loaded team, and you just can't get them in there. You got to put them in your flex at the bare minimum because T's taken back over this backfield. I mean, they proved it last week. Last week, he came out. They said he was going to get more usage. He did. Whoa, we almost dropped stuff there. 25 carries, 130 rushing yards, two rushing touchdowns compared to Chuba Huber, just five carries. Now, Huber did deal with an injury during this game, so it's a little bit skewed, but it was pretty clear they were going to go all in on Rico. 74% of the snaps, 80% of the backfield rush attempts, and 50% of the routes run. I mean, he was a workhorse back just like he was in that other two-game sample when Chuba Hubard was out. If you take that two-game sample without Hubard and this week where he was basically operating as the workhorse in that three-game sample, this is what Hubard has. This is what Rico Dole has done. He's averaging 26 carries, 173 rushing yards, and over 200 total yards during that three-game stretch. Obviously, in that stretch, you could look at him and be like, "Yeah, this is a top five running back in fantasy. He should definitely be in my starting lineup." But there are some concerns because on Wednesday this week, he was dealing with multiple injuries and didn't practice. But the head coach Dave Canalis said, "Don't worry about it. We're just being safe with." And in Thursday, Tuba Hubard or Rico Doto, I keep saying the wrong name. Rico Do was able to return to practice, so it looks like he'll be good to go. So, don't worry about that. Have him in your lineups if he's active.
The beautiful thing about this is we started this video off with the Carolina Panther Ted McMillan. So, yeah, we're saying to start both of them because of the matchup. The New Orleans Saints rank dead last, dead last in tackling right now. Have you seen Rico Doto last week in the weeks without Chuba Hubard earlier this year? Have you seen him? What does the guy do? Breaks tackles non-stop. Whether it's in the middle of the field for an extra 15 yards, whether it's at the goal line to get into the end zone, all he does is break tackles. And now he's facing a Saints team that not only does this Saints team, not only do they rank dead last in tackling. The last time we saw them last week, they gave up 114 rushing yards to Kyum Williams. They weren't done there, they also gave up 58 rushing yards to Blake Corm, who averaged four and a half yards per carry, 43 carries on the day is what they allowed, just able all to run all over them, the Rams the last time they played. This is the perfect matchup. And it feels like Bizarro World, but the Carolina Panthers do have a winning record at 5-4. And they are five and a half point home favorites. I never thought I would say that all year. Why? Because the Carolina Panthers until this week have been underdogs every single week. And somehow on the year, they're five and four. So, the Carolina Panthers has five and a half point home favorites. They're in a perfect situation to be able to run the ball heavy in the second half of the game with Rico Do in the first half of the game and throughout, especially in the red zone. Lean on Tedo McMillan. Be sure to have both those guys in your starting lineup.
So, these are the seven must-start players for this week. Now, if you want to see the players that at each position, running back and wide receiver, you need to trade for, we released those videos earlier in the week. The whole goal is for you to improve your team, win more matchups, get to the fantasy championship, and win that and smack around your friends. So, the running backs you need to trade for before they explode, and the wide receivers you need to trade for before they explode, those videos will pop up right here. Be sure to check them out. I think they're going to help you out a ton.