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 Indianapolis Colts players heading into their matchup with the Pittsburgh Steelers to help you craft a winning lineup.
Daniel Jones, QB
Daniel Jones’s managers got a nice gift last week, as a tiny little flip that easily could have been a handoff resulted in Jonathan Taylor’s third score of the week and added to your bottom line despite Jones really not playing much of a role in the touchdown.
The leader of statistically the best offense in the league now has multiple TD tosses in four straight games, the longest active streak in the NFL.
Sometimes in this game of ours, you can be a victim of your own success. Dimes has yet to throw 35 passes in a game this season, and he’s thrown for more than seven yards just three times, simply because there is no need.
Those are limiting factors when it comes to his upside, especially if you think this game could be a lower-possession type of contest, but the floor is just so high that I can’t rank him lower than QB8 for Week 9.
Jonathan Taylor, RB
Jonathan Taylor was great last season, and, before Halloween, he has more rushing touchdowns this season than he did in 2021.
The 80-yard scamper was a work of art last week. If you want to put some of the blame on the angles taken by Tennessee defenders, you can. But that sort of thing seems to happen a lot when JT is carrying the ball, so I’m not so sure it’s a defensive issue as much as it is a walking mismatch at the running back position.
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Every week, we talk about Indianapolis’s offensive regression, and seemingly every week, they beat us over the head with another ultra-efficient performance.
Maybe they are punching above their weight. Maybe this is a team that will fall short in the playoffs.
None of that matters right now. They’ve got a formula that the NFL can’t stop, and they aren’t afraid to lean into it.
Taylor is averaging 5.9 yards per carry, catching 92.6% of his targets, and scoring a touchdown once every 2.3 quarters.
If some of those metrics regress, or they all do a little bit, you’re still talking about a Tier 1 running back capable of carrying your team to glory. You’ve landed the golden player of the 2021 early rounds: how are you going to build around this beast to ensure you have a chance to raise a banner?
Alec Pierce, WR
At this point, don’t we have to take anyone attached to this Colts offense seriously?
Alec Pierce hasn’t scored this season and hasn’t proven himself to be a consistent target earner during his 3.5 years as a pro, but 18.1 yards per catch (21.4 this season) doesn’t happen by accident.
If your weekly roster runs out a certain way, playing Pierce as your flex makes all the sense in the world. He has a 40+ yard catch in half of his games this season and has shown the ability to be oddly efficient at times.
If you have a strong team that holds advantages over your opponent all over the place, there’s no point in taking on the risk that comes with a profile like this.
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The craziest stat I stumbled across when deep diving this profile: 31 of his 32 targets this season have either come less than 20 yards downfield (21) or more than 35 yards (10).
It’s nice to see some balance, but that one bomb attempt per game is essentially what you’re betting on, and there are worse weeks to place that wager (PIT: 27th in YPA and yards per completion on long throws this season)
Josh Downs, WR
I’m not sure the talent gap between Josh Downs and Michael Pittman is as close as the 2025 statistics suggest, and that’s going to result in me being higher on the former than most of the industry on a routine basis.
Downs has scored in consecutive games and has worked himself into the slot role, with over 60% of his routes coming there every single week this season.
Could that mean a true breakout game awaits?
The Steelers looked vulnerable all over the field on Sunday night, and, for the season, they rank 20th against that spot on the floor in YPA and 26th in yards per completion.
The fact that Downs has yet to reach 70 air yards caps my enthusiasm, but I don’t think he’s an unreasonable PPR flex this week and is an interesting DFS pivot off of what I assume will be very popular pieces elsewhere on this offense.
Michael Pittman Jr., WR
I don’t want to say he’s the most underappreciated receiver in the league, but he’s on the short list.
Michael Pittman reeled in a 21-yard score last week with the defender draped (illegally) all over him. It didn’t matter. The score helped him finish the week as a top 22 receiver for the sixth time this season, and more important than the single play was the target earning.
The risk that comes with potent offenses like this is volume. They score too fast, so the play count suffers, lowering the floor for everyone involved (while also raising the ceiling because of the points they put on the board).
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It can be a strange dynamic, but he earned a 34.6% target share last week, and that’s a great way to mitigate that risk. Pittman is capable of winning down the field, but it’s far less predictable than it was a season ago, and with him seeing only 14.3% of his targets 15+ yards past the line of scrimmage (29.7% last season), he’s not reliant on those less efficient plays.
I have Pittman ranked as my WR11 this week, and I’m more concerned about being too low than too high.
Tyler Warren, TE
Tyler Warren’s production came in under expectations last week as he logged just his second single-digit PPR game of the season.
It means nothing moving forward.
This was (again) the Jonathan Taylor show, and with Pittman having a strong matchup against the Titans — what little volume there was to be had through the air — the impressive rookie simply wasn’t needed for Indy to beat the brakes off of Tennessee.
If we are going to preach the importance of being on a strong offense, we can’t then complain when the offense is too good and coast for the final quarter.
I entered this week with Warren and McBride as my Tier 1 options at the position for the remainder of the season, and I’m not pivoting from that. He’s caught 74% of his targets this season and is averaging nearly 10 yards per target.
You’re lucky to have Warren on your roster: don’t forget that.