In Week 3, the Washington Commanders will face the Cincinnati Bengals as part of a Monday Night Football doubleheader. Should Commanders wide receiver Terry McLaurin be in your fantasy football team’s starting lineup?
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Terry McLaurin Fantasy Outlook
Yikes. The idea of drafting McLaurin this summer was that he was the alpha receiver in an offense set to improve in a significant way. But maybe we were blinded by Daniels’ upside and overlooked the learning curve in the process.
Through two weeks, McLaurin has just eight grabs for 39 yards. The average depth of targets and target share are statistics that are typically inversely correlated, but both are trending toward a career low for Washington’s WR1.
The box scores up to this point are very discouraging, but let’s not lose track of the fact that McLaurin still has as many catches as any of his teammates have targets and that this offense is going to develop with time.
Could some of that development from Daniels take place this week? Cincinnati owns the second-lowest blitz rate this season, potentially putting the rookie in a spot to execute the passing-game plan as opposed to defaulting to his athleticism to save the day.
I want to see it before committing to McLaurin as a top-25 option for the position, but he’s swimming in those waters for me. I have him ranked as a viable Flex option in a similar vein as Christian Kirk and Stefon Diggs.