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 Green Bay Packers players heading into their matchup with the Pittsburgh Steelers to help you craft a winning lineup.
Jordan Love, QB
With a spike in completion percentage, TD/INT rate, and a willingness to move the chains with his legs, Jordan Love is making the Packers brass happy.
With one finish this season better than QB11, he’s not really doing that for his fantasy managers.
That’s a tough combination. This is a team that wants to win with Josh Jacobs and the defense, something they are very capable of doing.
Joe Flacco performed in this matchup last week, and Dillon Gabriel is the only QB Pittsburgh has held under 19 fantasy points over the past month. I think we are looking at a narrow range of outcomes for Love (under 20 completions in five of six games), and in the right spot, that’s helpful, but because so many QBs carry higher ceilings, I couldn’t get Love higher than QB10 for this upcoming weekend.
Josh Jacobs, RB
Jacobs now has 50+ rushing yards and multiple rushing scores in three straight games, a streak that, since the beginning of 2004, has only been topped by the great LaDainian Tomlinson (2006).
Not bad for a player who popped up on the injury report late in the process last week with what the team labeled as “illness/calf”.
Things haven’t always been easy for Green Bay this season, but they are in position to compete for an NFC title, and their bellcow back is the driving force behind the offense.
He’s as good a bet for 20+ touches as anyone this side of Christian McCaffrey, and with an 80% catch rate, there’s a level of trust that he has on all downs.
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Would I like to see the 3.7 yards-per-carry trend rise? I would, but with the volume and elite conversion rate in scoring situations, I’m not complaining.
Pittsburgh hasn’t faced a rushing attack like this, so I’m not too scared of their reasonable run-stuffing numbers to date. Jacobs isn’t a CMC or Robinson in terms of ceiling output, but I’d argue that his floor is among the five best at the position, and that has him sitting in my top 5 for this week.
Matthew Golden, WR
Either I’m confused about the plan or the Packers are confused about the prospect.
I’m not sure either is a good outcome.
Matthew Golden had a 14.8-yard aDOT through five career games before checking in at 3.8 last week in Arizona.
Is he a field stretcher? A gadget guy? At risk of disappearing altogether when the WR room is at full strength with Jayden Reed and Christian Watson on the mend?
I maintain my thought that there is potential here. Love is going to take his shots, and Golden has proven capable of getting vertical, but the odds of us achieving any level of consistency are declining week by week.
Pittsburgh has allowed at least four deep completions in two of its past three games, and if that trend continues, Green Bay’s talented rookie could bail you out during a tough week.
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Tucker Kraft, TE
Well, this is interesting.
Tucker Kraft scored for a second straight week and set a season-high in slot usage.
Does that stick? Jayden Reed and Christian Watson are on the mend: would their presence change anything?
I’m not sure, but I am sure that Kraft is a vital part of an offense I trust. An offense I trust that has yet to fully commit to any receiver as their alpha.
This offense is built around the running game, and while they lack a WR1, they don’t lack mouths to feed. For those reasons, I can’t view Kraft as a threat to enter the top tier at the position, but his status as a Tier 2 TE is very safe, and that puts you ahead of half of your competition weekly.
The score last weekend came in the fourth quarter of a tight game with some nice ball-handling from Love. If the Packers are going to continue to scheme things like this up for their athletic tight end, the hot start to the season might only be the beginning.
