The Buffalo Bills will travel to take on the New York Jets on Monday Night Football in Week 6. Here’s fantasy football start-sit advice for every Bills skill player who has the potential to make an impact during the game.
Josh Allen, QB
A QB17 finish last week wasn’t exactly what you were hoping for in a matchup with the Texans, but this is a game of two things — inches and process. From a process standpoint, if you told me we were getting 30 pass attempts and 54 rushing yards from Allen, I would have ranked him as a top-three performer at the position, no questions asked.
The usage is never a concern here, and if he puts a little more touch on a first-quarter bomb to Mack Hollins, we are talking about a QB12 finish that is much more palatable. I’m not making excuses for his dismal Week 5 performance, I’m giving you fuel to feel just fine about relying on him moving forward.
For his career, Allen averages 46.1 rushing yards per game against the Jets and has reached 20 fantasy points in five of his past six against the divisional rival.
Do I worry a little that he’s thrown multiple touchdown passes in just one of his past five games on the road against the Jets, a defense that currently owns the sixth-best red-zone defense in the league? A little and that is why he is my QB6 this week and not QB2, but that’s not reason enough to bench him.
James Cook, RB
Updated at 6:50 PM ET on Monday, October 14
Bills RB James Cook has officially been listed as inactive because of his toe injury. He will miss Buffalo’s Monday Night Football game against the New York Jets.
We had two concerns surrounding Cook entering this season — how high was his touch ceiling and would he get any opportunities in scoring position? Week 5 is only one data point, but 22 touches with a five-yard touchdown run is certainly a positive outcome for those of us hoping that Cook can be a weekly RB1 moving forward.
In a month, Cook has as many scores as he had in the first two years of his career. He’s not Derrick Henry 2.0, but with multiple avenues to production, his fantasy profile is as stable as you could have possibly asked for when you drafted him this summer.
Can he keep the good times rolling against a Jets defense that allowed the Vikings to run for just 82 yards on 30 attempts with no single rush picking up more than 10 yards? Asking for a repeat performance of Week 5 might be a little aggressive, but I feel good about him giving you top-20 numbers. In his last game against Gang Green, Cook piled up 102 yards from scrimmage with a score, giving us a path to greatness.
Buffalo has lost consecutive games and they’ve been exposed in a few spots, but the backfield isn’t a question mark.
Keon Coleman, WR
The rookie was positioned to play well last week in Houston, and he eventually paid off for the spreadsheet savants with a 49-yard catch-and-run score with 4:20 left in the third quarter. Still, that was his only catch in a seemingly perfect spot.
And he may have stepped out of bounds on the splash play.
Twice.
I don’t mind returning to Coleman in a DFS showdown setting – the upside remains. Coleman’s aDOT is higher than the two featured options in this offense (Shakir and Dalton Kincaid) combined and the Jets own the second-highest opponent aDOT this season.
New York boasts a stingy defense, so why not swing for the fences?
Coleman’s profile comes preloaded with a low floor and that’s not going to change, but his role has slowly been trending in the right direction and I think there’s an upside in this profile to chase if you’re truly stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Khalil Shakir, WR
Updated at 6:50 PM ET on Monday, October 14
Khalil Shakir is officially active and will play against the New York Jets.
The slot machine who has an 89.1% catch rate since the beginning of last season has carried over his efficient ways into this new-look offense and profiles as the most reliable receiver in this Joe Brady-orchestrated attack.
An ankle injury kept him out of Week 5, so you’ll need to keep an eye on all reporting out of Buffalo this week before counting on Flexing him. Injuries are difficult to work around as it is and it gets more complicated when we’re talking about the final game of the week where you lack optionality if you elect to wait out official news.
Shakir has finished three of his four active weeks this season as WR31 or better. While the floor is very encouraging, this isn’t the type of player I’d make plans to wait on.
Stay tuned, we will keep you updated on the latest information regarding his status, but if we lack clarity going into the weekend, Shakir will fall way down my rankings, as the risk/reward equation makes him the type of receiver that I’ll be benching instead of risking a DNP.
Curtis Samuel, WR
Allen threw 30 passes in a game where the Bills were behind for the majority of the game and Samuel finished with a big goose egg in the receiving yards department (one catch on four targets) despite the absence of Shakir.
In August, there was hope that Joe Brady would unearth the version of Samuel that was a weekly asset with the Panthers in 2020. In October, there’s no need to hold onto that thought.
Dalton Kincaid, TE
There are simply no two ways about it — Kincaid has been a disaster for those of us who thought he was a bargain at this ADP this summer, assuming that he had a chance to lead the position in fantasy points this season.
His next game with 50 receiving yards will be his first this season and, despite playing in an offense that has scored 142 points this season, he’s been held without an end-zone target in four of five games.
But wait, what’s this?
Kincaid has a 25+ yard reception in three straight games and, over that stretch, has an 11.6 aDOT (Weeks 1-2: -0.6). Now, the average depth of target obviously isn’t everything, but at the tight end position, any level of downfield upside is significantly appealing.
I’m less bullish on Kincaid than I was six weeks ago, but I remain sold on the thought that he is far better than his current numbers suggest and that he’ll be an asset moving forward. There aren’t many TEs I’d look to acquire in this year of brutality at the position — Kincaid (10 catches on 11 targets against the Jets last season) is a rare exception.