The fantasy football landscape shifts each week, bringing fresh opportunities and unexpected challenges that separate the prepared from the pretenders. Savvy managers know that last week’s performance tells only part of the story, and diving deeper into the underlying metrics reveals the accurate picture.
This week presents some intriguing decisions. Here’s insight about key Buffalo Bills players heading into their matchup with the Cincinnati Bengals to help you craft a winning lineup.
Josh Allen, QB
Josh Allen wasn’t asked to do much on Sunday, and that resulted in an underwhelming fantasy day by his superhuman standards, but if 16.7 fantasy points is in play for a day that sees Buffalo running backs record 42 rush attempts, we take it.
With the touchdown run in the fourth quarter, Allen broke Cam Newton’s career record for rushing scores at the position (76) in the most Allen way possible: a bruising/physical carry that only he is capable of.
I was encouraged by him getting Keon Coleman a touchdown. We will see if that has a lasting impact, but it can’t hurt. Sunday’s game saw 33 total points put on the board: would it surprise you if BOTH teams scored 33 in this spot?
That’s extreme, but you get the idea. Last week was an outlier, and you have nothing to worry about.
James Cook, RB
James Cook doesn’t have a role that allows him to threaten the top tier at the position, but if he did, I think he’d have a real chance at putting up similar numbers to the elite.
He’s doing just fine in this role that he has, and that has him locked in RB1 status until otherwise noted.
He’s caught at least three passes in four straight games, a great sign after he went four games with one total reception. We know he’s an elite runner of the football (six games with over 110 rushing yards, two more than any other back in the sport), and that should play just fine against the NFL’s third-worst run defense in terms of success rate (only the Giants and Cowboys have been worse).
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This game has two of my top-5 running backs for Week 14 in it, and I prefer Cook to Chase Brown if you’re splitting DFS hairs (it’s also to run a correlated stack in that direction than the other).
Ray Davis, RB
I think Ray Davis runs hard.
I like what he
brings to the table (nine carries for 62 yards against the Steelers), and his 220-pound frame only gets more difficult to drag down as the weather cools.
That said, James Cook isn’t giving him a chance to carve out a flex-worthy niche. That’s not going to change any time soon, and that makes Davis’ roster depth more than someone who has a real chance at hitting your lineup.
There are only a handful of backups in the league who would walk into an RB2 ranking if elevated up the depth chart, and Davis is one of them.
Keon Coleman, WR
Keon Colmeman found the end zone in Pittsburgh last week, a touchdown that had to do wonders for his mental state after being a healthy scratch in consecutive games.
I’d love to get excited about a big target in this Josh Allen offense, but they’ve shown no willingness to feature him, and it sounds like he hasn’t exactly been holding up his end of the bargain either.
He’s a high-risk, medium-reward player at best, and considering that nine different Bills ran 9-21 routes last week, the target ceiling just isn’t high enough for me to label him as a roster-worthy dart throw.
If exposure to this Buffalo offense is what you want, Gabe Davis led their WRs in routes run last week and has more institutional knowledge than Coleman when it comes to this Allen-led system.
Khalil Shakir, WR
We are coming up on 18 months of pitching Khalil Shakir as a high-floor play, but he’s been anything but that over the past month:
- 7 catches for 58 yards
- 1 catch for -3 yards
- 8 catches for 110 yards
- 1 catch for 5 yards
I can handle some volatility, but it’s the nonsensical nature of it that’s the problem. The pass funnel Bucs were responsible for that -3-yard showing, and the Texans, one of the best defenses in the entire NFL, were gashed for his only 100-yard showing of the season.
I recommend starting Shakir every week, just to lock in the points (usually), but if you were playing the matchup game, you’re probably even more frustrated.
The Bengals are a bottom-10 defense against the slot in terms of passer rating, YPA, and touchdown rate, all things that should point to a nice bounce-back week for Shakir. I’m rinsing off the recent swings in production, remembering that he should have had a touchdown on a well-designed red zone route combination if Josh Allen didn’t try to throw the ball through him from five yards away, and playing him as a low-end PPR WR2.
We aren’t asking for much. Just give us the five-for-60 lines that we’ve come to know and love.
Dalton Kincaid, TE
It came down to the wire last week, but this hamstring injury was enough of a concern to Dalton Kincaid for one more week.
With him practicing ahead of Week 13, prevailing wisdom has him being active for this advantageous spot. If you’ve been waiting on Kincaid, that means you lack optionality at the position and are going to plug him in when given the opportunity to do so.
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Cincinnati has proven allergic to guarding the position for two seasons now, and we know that Kincaid has TD equity at the very least (one of every nine targets this season has resulted in a score). The floor is low because the target earning skills are a work in progress (36 in eight games) and an injury like this could act up in-game, but he’s better than what is available in most leagues and that’s really all you’re looking for.
Dawson Knox, TE
Dalton Kincaid has run hot with his touchdown rate, so it shouldn’t be shocking that his replacement has struggled.
Math suggests that Kincaid himself was going to have a hard time keeping up with the pace he had set for himself, thus making Dawson Knox a shaky investment at best.
In the three games that Buffalo’s TE1 has missed, Knox has earned a total of 11 targets and has not yet reached 30 receiving yards. Reports are trending in a positive direction for Kincaid, and we will have that conversation, but the idea of streaming Knox was a flawed one from the beginning, and it has borne out with his increased opportunity.
