The Los Angeles Chargers‘ fantasy football preview takes a look at their WR2 position, while the Green Bay Packers‘ fantasy outlook focuses on if you can trust any of their skill-position players.
Los Angeles Chargers at Green Bay Packers
- Spread: Chargers -3
- Total: 44.5
- Chargers implied points: 20.8
- Packers implied points: 23.8
Quarterbacks
Justin Herbert: Herbert completed 27 passes against the Lions last week, the fourth time this season he has hit that total, giving him access to elite upside.
The Packers blitz at the seventh-highest rate in the league, which is a layup for Kellen Moore’s offense to exploit. Jaire Alexander (shoulder) sat out last week, and if Green Bay is missing its top defender again, my ranking of Herbert at QB6 might not be high enough. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he was the highest-scoring player at the position on the DFS main slate.
Jordan Love: With a pair of touchdowns against the Steelers, Love posted his best fantasy day since September. But it shouldn’t matter to anyone.
He couldn’t go through four quarters without flashing the flaws in his decision-making (52.5% completion rate with two interceptions), confirming that his floor is way too low to consider him roster-worthy in any single-QB format.
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This matchup against the second-worst per-pass defense makes Love a low-end QB2 that I would play in Superflex settings, but that’s as optimistic as I can be.
Running Backs
Austin Ekeler: The All-World fantasy RB has scored five times in six games this season and logged a season-high 19 carries last week against Detroit. He was stopped three times at the 1-yard line, meaning his productive night could have been even better.
Ekeler has seen 22 targets over the past three weeks and should be considered as valuable as any player in fantasy outside of Christian McCaffrey moving forward.
Aaron Jones: He was unable to build on a strong Week 9 performance, and now we’re back to worrying about the floor. On the bright side, this is a plus matchup, and Jones was targeted six times on 21 routes last week.
Jones is a versatile back, which profiles him as a strong RB2 in this spot, but understand that he is far from safe.
AJ Dillon: Big plays are rare when Green Bay has the ball, so Dillon’s 40-yard run last week against the Steelers (his first rush of more than 15 yards this season per the Week 11 Cheat Sheet) was good to see. Of course, he averaged under 4.0 yards per carry on his other attempts and pulled in just one of his three targets.
Dillon’s size and Jones’ lack of health were supposed to make the former a back that you could Flex when you’re stuck, with the thought being that a TD plunge could salvage his day. With one score on 115 touches this season, I’m here to tell you that if you think you’re chasing TD equity by holding onto Dillon, you’ve misread the situation.
I’m holding onto Dillon in most situations, but if you play in a shallow league and need every spot on your bench to hold weekly upside, I could see cutting ties with him.
Wide Receivers
Keenan Allen: Week 10’s star racked up 175 yards and a pair of touchdowns on 11 catches against the Lions, reminding us just how dominant he can be (this was his first 100-yard game since September).
The Packers have limited WR1s in consecutive weeks — Diontae Johnson and Cooper Kupp totaled just three catches and 65 yards on 11 targets — but that’s not nearly enough to scare me in the least. Allen is my WR6 this week.
Quentin Johnston and Jalen Guyton: In a shootout against the Lions, both Johnston and Guyton played 35 snaps, caught four passes, and scored. Not ideal.
All we ask for in Los Angeles is separation when it comes to the WR2 role behind Allen (sans Joshua Palmer), and, if anything, that role is getting more cloudy, not clearer.
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Both of these receivers deserve to be rostered. Neither of them deserves to be played.
Stacking your bench with exposure to offenses with upside is a sharp play, but don’t get carried away — neither owns a stable role that we can count on.
Christian Watson: You, me, and Watson — we all have the same number of games with 40+ receiving yards over the past month. If Watson is currently a part of your process when it comes to determining your Flex position, you’re holding onto your priors too long.
We are through 10 weeks, and Watson has made one play of note…one.
Romeo Doubs: The second-year WR has now scored in each of Green Bay’s past three losses. We saw Doubs earn targets at a high rate as September came to a close, but that’s a thing of the past with a handful of mouths for an underwhelming Love to feed (no more than five targets in four of his past five games).
Doubs is my highest-ranked Packer receiver this week, but he’s still on the outside looking in at my top 40.
Jayden Reed: In Week 10, Reed scored on a pass intended for him for the first time since Week 2 and continues to show promise. He has caught 15 of 18 targets over the past month, the rare efficient piece in this otherwise depressing offense.
If Reed had a path to targets, I’d be interested in considering his raw talent as a Flex option, but he doesn’t. Last week, eight different Packers saw 3-7 targets. With a lack of quality and quantity for all members of this passing game, none of them are worth your mental energy — even in a plus matchup.
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If you have a good read on this pass-catching corps, bet the props or build a top-heavy DFS lineup. I’m not going there in a season-long setting where a loss this time of year can cost you a playoff berth.
Tight Ends
Gerald Everett and Donald Parham Jr.: The tough part here is that, by themselves, the Everett or Parham profile would interest me. But together on a team that also gave 14 routes to the vaunted tandem of Stone Smartt/Nick Vannett, makes it impossible to go this route with any sort of conviction.
Parham held the edge over Everett in snaps last week (32-24), but it was the latter with a 17-15 advantage in routes.
The TE position is difficult enough when you have one low-volume option to deal with (see Musgrave, Luke), and when that tiny pie is split into pieces, you’re often left wanting more.
I prefer Everett to Parham if you’re going down this road in a DFS setting, but neither is of much interest to me in redraft.
Luke Musgrave: We are looking at the definition of a blob tight end. There are some athletic tools to buy into with the rookie, and they’ve allowed him to make three splash plays over the past two weeks. However, over the course of four quarters, he is consistently handicapped by poor QB play and inexperience.
We’ve seen Musgrave make plays, which is enough to keep him on your radar as a player to keep tabs on if you’re in the streaming game. But until we see consistent usage or efficiency, he’s going to rank outside of my top 15 at the position.
Should You Start Aaron Jones or James Cook?
Give me Jones. I have them ranked back-to-back, so we are splitting hairs to a degree here, but Cook’s lack of scoring equity scares me in a tough matchup with the Jets.
There’s no doubt that playing Jones is something of a leap of faith given his disappointing output this season, but the risk is worth it in this advantageous matchup.
Should You Start Luke Musgrave or Tyler Conklin?
Tyler Conklin offers very little upside, but his floor has been steady for two months now and his usage is trending in the right direction. Both of these tight ends are on my DFS radar, but for redraft where I prefer to chase the floor at the position, I prefer the stable role of Conklin over the wide range of outcomes that comes with betting on a Packer.
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