The Cleveland Browns fantasy football outlook lends insight as to how far Amari Cooper should fall down the rankings, while the Indianapolis Colts fantasy story this week is all about Jonathan Taylor’s role.
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Cleveland Browns at Indianapolis Colts
- Spread: Browns -2
- Total: 39
- Browns implied points: 20.5
- Colts implied points: 18.5
Quarterbacks
Deshaun Watson: Trying to keep tabs on this Watson situation is not for the faint of heart, but I’m not sure it really matters. At this point, I have no issue with cutting Watson.
The ranking of the Cleveland skill players would not change in a significant way should Watson miss a third consecutive game despite being physically cleared to play at the beginning of the month.
Gardner Minshew: In a revenge spot, Minshew threw for 329 yards and a touchdown, but he was intercepted three times in an underwhelming effort (22.8 QBR). Minshew doesn’t matter for fantasy in any matchup, let alone this one, but the fact that he has thrown 99 passes over his two starts is encouraging for all involved in this offense.
Running Backs
Jerome Ford: Do we have a committee forming in an offense without much scoring equity? That’s a problem that could be on our radar sooner than later for Ford (38-29 snap edge for Ford over Kareem Hunt), but he was able to rack up 52 yards on five fourth-quarter carries (12 carries for 32 yards prior) to help push Cleveland across the finish line.
Remember that 69-yard run against the Steelers the night Nick Chubb went down?
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Without that Pop Warner-ish run, Ford is averaging 3.0 yards per carry this season. Nine feet. Two of his three touchdowns this season have been scored via the reception, something that is tough to count on with Hunt’s (80% career catch rate) role expanding.
The Colts allow just 3.7 yards per carry and just held a much more explosive Travis Etienne to 3.1 yards per carry (under 2.0 yards per carry if you remove the 22-yard wildcat touchdown, a formation the Browns don’t employ). Ford comes in as a low-end RB2 for me in this brutal week to rank the position, checking in just behind Rhamondre Stevenson and ahead of Zack Moss and Tyler Allgeier.
Kareem Hunt: With 12 carries for 47 yards and a touchdown to go along with three catches for 24 yards, Hunt was a big fantasy winner from Week 6. He was on the field for Cleveland’s first play, and despite the snap discrepancy, he matched Ford with 13 routes run.
Jonathan Taylor: Week 6 was a fine showing for PPR managers who started Taylor (13 touches and 11.5 fantasy points), and it represented a nice step forward from the 10-snap effort in his season debut. Zack Moss was on the field for the opening snap, but it was Taylor who got Indianapolis’ first carry after four straight passes.
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Taylor and Moss split just about everything right down the middle, a signal that this offense is trending toward featuring their former All-Pro. The committee situation may feel ominous, but remember that Moss was coming off of a 195-yard, two-TD effort against one of the league’s stingiest run defenses. He played as well as he could in Week 5 and still lost significant work in this spot in favor of ramping up Taylor.
Without a clear feature role in a brutal matchup, Taylor’s ranking can only go so high. He’s a strong RB2 for me this week, and any chance you have to acquire his services at a reasonable price could end in less than a week. If you’re playing the long game, go get yourself some Taylor exposure and use a tough Week 7 matchup as leverage.
Zack Moss: Coming off the best game of his young career (32.5 fantasy points vs. Titans), Moss barely held onto the snap edge over Taylor (39-33). Moss punched in a three-yard score with the Colts down 18 late and nearly doubled his season catch total (six receptions), rewarding fantasy managers who plugged him in after the big Week 5.
That was a nice going away present. Moss was a reasonable start last week based on how limited Taylor was in his season debut – I don’t expect that to be the case again the rest of this season. I have him ranked in the Jaylen Warren range of Flex options that carry plenty of risk and limited volume upside.
Wide Receivers
Amari Cooper: This passing game is not one I’m looking to invest in regardless of who is under center (5.8 yards per attempt this season), but Cooper has remained viable for the most part (12.5+ points in three of his past four games).
There are several moving pieces at the quarterback position throughout the league that will impact the WR rankings with clarity. But today, Cooper is a Flex option for me that ranks ahead of other involved receivers with questionable play under center (Drake London and Josh Downs, for example).
Elijah Moore: The good news is that he has seen at least seven targets in four of five games this season. The bad news is that, despite volume that has little upside, Moore doesn’t have a game with 50 receiving yards this season.
If you want to hold him due to the Browns being past their bye week and hoping that Watson can show some form when healthy, I’d understand it. That said, Moore is very much on the chopping block should you need immediate help and don’t have time to wait.
Donovan Peoples-Jones: He owns a similar skill set to Rashid Shaheed, but DPJ can’t earn targets in this offense, even at his rate of efficiency. He is Cleveland’s version of Marquez Valdes-Scantling — elite in point-per-route leagues and largely useless otherwise.
Even if you’re chasing upside, you can do better at this moment than DPJ.
Michael Pittman Jr.: Indy’s WR1 was the alpha target earner (more catches than any of his teammates had targets), and in an offense that is willing to air it out, that’s all it takes to be a top-20 receiver in Week 7.
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Pittman ranks alongside other WR1s in tough spots like Calvin Ridley (Marshon Lattimore) and Christian Watson (Patrick Surtain).
Josh Downs: Prior to Week 6, Downs saw 25.3% of Minshew’s targets. While he failed to reach that mark against the Jags, he was involved in the early script (three targets on the first drive) and did find the end zone.
I liked the idea of adding Downs this week, but that doesn’t mean you plug him in immediately. Remember that we are playing the long game, and in Downs, you have an asset set to increase in value with time. He is ranked outside my top 35 this week alongside another popular waiver wire add, Wan’Dale Robinson.
Tight Ends
David Njoku: He caught three passes for 24 yards last week, and that’s about what I’m expecting from him moving forward until this passing game shows us any signs of life. With an expectation like that, Njoku is far from a TE who needs to be rostered and ranks outside of my top 15 this week. Give me Week 6 dud Logan Thomas or either potential streaming option in the Packers/Broncos game.
Should You Start Amari Cooper or DJ Moore?
We are dealing with questionable QB situations for both of these receivers, but Cooper has a little bit more experience with his backup option than Moore does. That’s enough to break the tie for who is the more appealing low-end Flex play this week.
Cooper earned eight targets last week, and while he hauled in only four of them, he racked up 108 yards and a WR20 finish for the week in a brutal matchup with poor weather. He finds himself in a more friendly (and weatherproof) matchup this time around, while Moore could regress to the production we saw early this season.
The floor is low for both and, in a perfect world, you can fire up a George Pickens or Jordan Addison instead.
Should You Start Zack Moss or Jahmyr Gibbs?
With David Montgomery sidelined and Craig Reynolds at less than full strength, Gibbs should get all the work he can handle in a tough matchup. While facing the second-best yards-per-play defense in the league isn’t ideal, I’d rather bet on a rookie whose role (for Week 7) is trending up over a player in Moss who seems destined to take a back seat to Jonathan Taylor sooner than later.
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Gibbs has yet to prove himself as a viable per-touch option, and that makes this call a scary one, but he is the more explosive talent with the inside track to a touch advantage.