Fantasy football managers are facing a six-team bye week. Bye-mageddon has arrived.
Six-team bye weeks are challenging, arduous, headache-inducing … and kind of fun?
There are plenty of lineup nightmares in weeks where we have a half-dozen teams on bye at once. But you are really playing the game of fantasy football at a time like this.
I provide my fantasy football rankings and tiers for Week 7 to help you navigate your start/sit lineup questions. Below we dive into a few notable players for the week.
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Fantasy Football Outlook
By no means is he any sort of panacea at the TE position, but Pat Freiermuth is expected to return from a hamstring injury this week. Freiermuth had only eight catches for 53 yards in his first four games (though he did catch two TD passes), but he has an appealing matchup this week vs. a Rams defense that has allowed the third most receiving yards and third-most fantasy points per game to TEs.
Packer rookie Luke Musgrave hasn’t popped yet, but consider him a low-end TE1 this week in a tasty matchup against the porous Denver defense. The Broncos have given up a league-high 454 receiving yards and 13.7 fantasy points per game to TEs.
It may be displeasing to members of the fantasy community that Jonnu Smith has more targets and receptions than his wildly talented teammate Kyle Pitts, but if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Let’s face it: Jonnu has become a viable fantasy option. Since Week 2, he’s averaged 6.4 targets, 5.0 receptions and 56.4 receiving yards per game, with no fewer than five targets or four receptions in any of his last five games. He’s TE8 in fantasy scoring over that span. Consider Jonnu a high-end TE2 this week.
It’s not safe to start Zach Ertz anymore. There was a sea change in the Cardinals’ deployment of their TEs last week. Second-year man Trey McBride had 4-62-0 on five targets vs. the Rams while getting a season-high 58% snap share. Ertz had 2-22-0 on five targets while getting a season-low 46% snap share. I still have Ertz ranked two spots ahead of McBride this week, but both are undesirable TE3s in my rankings.
-Pat Fitzmaurice
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