Fantasy football managers have had it rough so far this season, dealing with a massive amount of injuries. While it seems like every year there’s plenty to work through and deal with, 2023 seems to have presented people with a particular amount of headaches.
The hits keep coming as we trek into Week 8. Now, Tyler Lockett and Kenneth Walker are missing practice as Sunday approaches. Should fantasy managers begin to prepare for their absence as they set their lineups?
Latest News and Injury Updates Impacting Fantasy
Kenneth Walker, RB, Seattle Seahawks
The Seattle Seahawks drafted Kenneth Walker early in the 2022 NFL Draft, and he delivered in a big way down the stretch of his rookie season. This is why it came as such a shock when the Seahawks selected Zach Charbonnet, the talented RB out of UCLA, with a second-round selection in the 2023 NFL Draft.
It seemed as though Walker was destined to be in a committee backfield this season, and his fantasy stock took a massive tumble as a result. However, we’re now through seven weeks and the split between these two young RBs isn’t even close.
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Walker has seen a staggering 109 rush attempts on the season so far to Charbonnet’s mere 23. As a result, Walker is the RB6 on the year in half-PPR scoring formats, and he’s crushing his draft-day ADP coming into 2023.
However, there’s now the potential that fantasy managers may be without him for Week 8 because of a calf injury — he’s missed consecutive practices to begin the week. It’s possible this was a rest day coming off of a game in which he touched the ball 28 times, but it’s one to monitor closely.
We’ll continue to update you as more news and information becomes available, so check back frequently.
Tyler Lockett, WR, Seattle Seahawks
Rostering Lockett in your fantasy league is a roller coaster. You simply never know what type of performance you’re going to get any given week. But you can’t bench him because of the potential that he has one of his patented dominant performances.
Unfortunately, Lockett’s been more bust than boom so far in 2023, as he has just one game inside the top 20 WRs on the season and three outside of the top 40. The volume that he’s grown accustomed to from last season just simply isn’t there.
Fantasy managers may very well be without the veteran WR this week, though, as he missed practice on Wednesday and Thursday with a hamstring issue. We’ll need to wait for the Friday practice report before we truly start to discuss the potential fallout, but Jaxon Smith-Njigba could work his way into the top 36 of the WR rankings if Lockett were to miss time.
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