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 Las Vegas Raiders players heading into their matchup with the Kansas City Chiefs to help you craft a winning lineup.
Geno Smith, QB
Smith has thrown more touchdown passes than interceptions just once this season, and that doesn’t even begin to detail the struggles.
He’s just 3-of-10 when throwing deep over the past three weeks and is close to useless when pressured (24.8 passer rating courtesy of five interceptions and zero touchdowns). Behind an iffy offensive line and facing a defense that will have its ears pinned back for most of the night, Smith finishing as a top 25 QB this week would be an accomplishment.
Ashton Jeanty, RB
Jeanty has more targets and as many catches in October as he did in September.
That’s not a Jeanty note so much as it is a highlight of some scheme incompetence early on, but it seems to have been righted, and with Vegas playing with a positive game script last week against the Titans, they showed us why they picked Jeanty sixth overall.
25 touches.
That’s all we want. We know that there are limitations up and down this roster. Just give the kid as many opportunities as you can and let the chips fall where they may.
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I’ve got Jeanty as a low-end RB1 for the remainder of the season, and it’s a good thing we’ve seen his role in the passing game expand lately, as they are a double-digit-point underdog in this spot.
We saw the Raiders struggle to compete with the Colts two weeks ago, and in that spot, Jeanty ran 14 times while seeing seven targets. I think we see something similar against the reigning AFC champs, and that’s enough for him to slide inside my top 15 at the position.
Jakobi Meyers, WR
Meyers came blazing out of the gates this season, but as the Geno Smith express has taken a turn for the worse, his WR1 has found it impossible to succeed (four straight weeks finishing outside of the top 36 at the position).
I wish I could sell you on optimism, but with a declining slot rate and relatively few scoring opportunities, I really can’t. He benefited early from the threat of Brock Bowers, so maybe there’s a thread to pull there when the second-year tight end is deemed healthy, but are we confident that happens any time soon?
I prefer Meyers to Tre Tucker, but the gap is closing, and neither projects as a starter in the short term for me.
Brock Bowers, TE
The knee injury continues to nag Bowers, and the Raiders are staying the course by not forcing a piece they view as part of their future into their lineup.
That’s probably the right move for the franchise, but it’s getting difficult for fantasy managers to swallow. With a Week 8 bye for a team with no real postseason aspirations, it seems very possible that the consensus TE1 from this summer misses another game this week.
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I wish I could give you some savvy advice to get you out of this situation, but there’s only so much you can do. At this point, you’re pot-committed and can’t sell him for pennies on the dollar.
Bowers was targeted on 25% of his routes before the injury this season and 25.9% as a rookie. You’re not crazy to want to chase the ceiling … we just need him on the field, and it stands to reason that his return to performance is more likely to come in Week 9 than anything else.
