Fantasy Preview: Week 10 Late Slate

  • Colts (+4.5) @ Raiders (-205) O/U: 40.5

     

    Key storylines/What to Watch

    And the Jeff Saturday-coached Colts era begins, a phrase I never thought I’d be typing this season. The biggest thing to watch is obviously how this dysfunctional offense goes from here led by a rookie interim head coach who hasn’t coached above the high school level and just appointed pass game specialist/assistant QB coach Parks Frazier to call the offensive plays. It certainly has disaster written all over it, but crazier things have happened. What we do know is that Saturday will stick with Sam Ehlinger, who has a 69.7 QBR in two starts so far and is dinking and dunking his way through with a 5.8 YPA. The now backup QB Matt Ryan is finally practicing in full again from a shoulder injury, and a dark horse to replace Ehlinger if his struggles continue is former Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles.

     

    The Raiders are their own Vegas desert brand of dumpster fire right now fresh off blowing its third 17-point lead of the season. Despite reports that Josh McDaniels’ gig is not at risk, one has to think that owner Mark Davis only has tolerance for very few more disasters. The biggest injury news of the week on the silver and black side were IR trips for both Darren Waller (hamstring) and Hunter Renfrow (oblique) that will knock both out at least until the fantasy playoffs in most leagues. It’s a massive blow to Derek Carr’s fantasy outlook as he will now be without two pass-catchers who combined for nearly 37% of his completions last season.

     

    Top Starts

     

    RB Jonathan Taylor

    This obviously assumes that him practicing for consecutive days this week has him on track to make his return from his ankle injury that kept him out in Week 9. Now, we obviously have no clue what style of offense Saturday will prefer to run, but we do know that he was a four-time Pro Bowler during Joseph Addai’s very fantasy-relevant six-year career with the Colts. The Colts QB room is a far cry from the Peyton Manning-led one that Saturday had the luxury of protecting as a player. Everything seemingly points to Saturday being at least somewhat conservative to start his coaching career and feeding his now-healthy star back. The Raiders surrender the fourth-most fantasy points to opposing running backs, and Taylor should immediately get plenty active again catching the ball out of the backfield with the Raiders giving up the most receiving yards to running backs.

     

    WR Davante Adams

    One of the biggest fantasy concerns of Adams’ move from Green Bay to Las Vegas was the considerably more competitive target tree he’d be staring at on his new team. He’s managed to buck those trends with the fourth-highest target share in football at 31.4%, and now he could be in Cooper Kupp territory to eat nearly the entire meal himself with no Waller or Renfrow. Carr still needs to step up in a number of key areas, as Adams has the second-most unrealized air yards (556) and ranks a lowly 70th among eligible receivers with only a 70.6% catchable target rate. Despite all that, he’s somehow still the current touchdown king with seven endzone spikes and should continue to build on his third-most red-zone target total.

     

    Boom/Bust Dart-Throw

     

    WR Mack Hollins

    The loss of both Waller and Renfrow has re-opened the door for Hollins to perhaps command a target share moving forward as big as his signature hair. There was a three-game stretch earlier in the season when he popped for 16-257-1 on 24 total targets to emerge as a deep PPR league flier, and it’s probably safe to assume that eight targets is likely his floor with the vacated targets by his injured teammates. Hollins delivered a serviceable PPR line of 7-64-0 just two weeks ago while Renfrow was still active, so it’s probably safe to think that can be a baseline for what to expect now. Having said that, there’s still bust potential in the short-term with the Raiders facing the three best pass defenses consecutively starting with the Colts (2nd-best) this week. But, in PPR the expected volume should give him a strong chance to return flex value. In three games since the Raiders’ bye, Carr has averaged just a tick under 30 pass attempts per game. If Hollins gets a minimum of those eight targets per game, that puts his target share floor at a very healthy 26.7%.

     

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    Cowboys (-200) @ Packers (+4.5) O/U: 44

     

    Key storylines/What to Watch

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