The further into the NFL season, the clearer the Fantasy Football landscape gets. After two weeks, overreactions are still aplenty. Waiver wire pickups are basically still dart throws where one can only hope to hit the jackpot. The key to getting a bullseye is compiling a good watch list that is monitored and updated throughout the entire fantasy season. Read on to find out who should be added to the list to examine in the third week of action.
Week Three NFL Fantasy Football Watch List
The Return of CJ2K
This week’s running back to watch is newly re-signed Arizona Cardinals back Chris Johnson. Johnson got the ax from the Desert Birds after their third preseason game. David Johnson‘s stranglehold on the starting job didn’t look to change, and the team preferred to stay young at the backup position.
Fast forward to today, and now that the team is down one Johnson, they thought they’d pick up another. Chris Johnson may be a bit long in the tooth, but looking at his last preseason game, he still might have some juice left in him. In week three of exhibition games, he rushed six times for 31 yards, giving him a 5.2 YPC average.
Then, just last week after they picked him up from off of his couch, he came in to run for 44 yards on 11 carries against the Indianapolis Colts. Only a four yard average, but not bad for a guy who was supposed to be retired. Compare that to supposed starter Kerwynn Williams, who rushed nine times for only 22 yards.
Johnson will likely be Arizona’s lead back going forward, and probably will get the volume to at least give him decent fantasy numbers. In his last season as the starter for the Cardinals, Johnson averaged 9.6 fantasy points per game. That wasn’t flashy, but with running backs going down like flies already, he might be someone solid to turn to.
Give Johnson another week to settle back into Arizona’s offense. If he improves on his number of touches from last week, he should be next week’s top waiver priority.
Another Wiley Veteran
Three weeks into the regular season, and we finally have a quarterback to watch. It’s Jay Cutler, the signal caller everyone loves to hate! The Miami Dolphins lured him back from retirement after Ryan Tannehill went down. Cutler got his bye out of the way early, so he can be yours for the duration of the season.
Last week, his stats didn’t look too good, but they were efficient. He only amassed 230 yards and a touchdown, which amounted to 13.1 fantasy points in standard leagues. Still, he’s a guy to keep an eye on as he settles into his new team. People may forget that even though Cutler has not been the best quarterback in real life, he’s actually been a viable fantasy starter for most of his career.
On his career Cutler actually averages 18.8 FPPG. Now in Miami, he has a pretty good overall team. Jarvis Landry, Devante Parker, and Kenny Stills are an excellent trio of wide outs. He’s also back with Adam Gase, who he averaged 19.5 FPPG under in 2015. Again, it’s nothing that looks too special, but it’s also not bad.
Keep Cutler in mind when looking for streamer options at quarterback, or you’re in a deep league with not a lot of options under center.
A Fresh Start for a Troubled Talent
In a nice pattern of highlighting players in order of games played, here is a guy who has not even taken the field yet in 2017. Austin Seferian-Jenkins of the New York Jets is this week’s tight end to put a star next to and add to your watch list.
Seferian-Jenkins has all the tools to be a dominant tight end in this league. Maturity issues and off-field problems have stunted his growth into an NFL player. Now he comes back from a two-game suspension from a DUI. In recent years, the Jets offensive coordinator has not used tight ends at all. Their new coordinator, John Morton, wants to change that. They plan to come out with rookie Jordan Leggett and get into a lot of two tight end sets.
In reality, there aren’t a lot of options for journeyman quarterback Josh McCown to throw to. It’s very likely that he goes to Seferian-Jenkins early and often. Remember the last time McCown was a starter in the league? Think hard. It was at the Dawg Pound for the Cleveland Browns, and he turned literal unknown Gary Barnidge into a fantasy superstar. The so-called Barnyard Dog had a one-hit wonder fantasy season with McCown tossing him the rock in 2015. That year, he finished second in points scored for tight ends.
Could we see a similar phenomenon happen with Seferian-Jenkins? Monitor his performance in the next few weeks and see if he fits in with his new team.
Redux: Return of Njoku
What’s the point of watching players if we don’t come back to them? Rob Gronkowski, Tyler Eifert, and Jimmy Graham all went out with injuries in week two. While it remains to be seen how long they’ll be out, it undoubtedly creates a rush for tight ends in an already thin market.
In week one, we highlighted Cleveland Browns rookie David Njoku. He’s still had a pretty quiet start to the season, but he did end up scoring a touchdown last week, showing that he has a spot on their offense. Not only that, but Corey Coleman broke his hand, putting him out indefinitely. Their other top receiver, Kenny Britt, looks to be missing in action so far this season. Combine all of this and Njoku’s role will only increase as the season goes along.
If your tight end was one of the stars who went down, or if more tight ends go down, Njoku is definitely worth a flier pickup. Now might be the time to strike, because he may not be available too much longer.
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