Fantasy Football Week 7 Recap
Week 7 wasn’t overly friendly to fantasy managers. There were only nine quarterbacks that topped twenty fantasy points, and three of those (Drake Maye, Russell Wilson and Marcus Mariota) are still owned in less than 20% of Yahoo leagues so it’s unlikely that you were happy with your quarterback play this past weekend. We also saw two starters go down with long term injuries, as Deshaun Watson tore his achilles and Aiden O’Connell broke his hand. Both were leading inept offenses so they won’t affect most leagues, but for those who are playing in super-flex leagues, it’s worth monitoring who will be the next man up. The Browns elevated Dorian Thompson-Robinson to the backup for week 7 so he appeared to have the leg up over Jameis Winston going forward. That is until he suffered an injury of his own, vaulting the rollercoaster ride that is Winston into the drivers seat. The Browns receiver room is one of the weakest in the league so that situation should be avoided, but tight end David Njoku was peppered with targets so he’ll be a must start going forward.
In Vegas, we’ve already seen what the offense looks like with Gardner Minshew in charge, and it’s not pretty. Much like in Cleveland, the only startable pass catcher in this offense is the tight end. Rookie Brock Bowers is already a star at the position and has had double digit targets in each of his last three games. If Minshew wants to keep his starting job, he needs to continue that trend going forward.
Of course, injuries overtake the headlines after week 7, particularly at wide receiver. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were decimated on Monday night – Mike Evans went down early with a hamstring injury that seemingly was bothering him for the past week or so, and then the second best receiver in fantasy Chris Godwin is now out for the season with a dislocated ankle on a play that occurred at the end of the game.
Brandon Aiyuk’s disappointing season also came to an end after suffering what appears to be a torn ACL, Deebo Samuel has been hospitalized with pneumonia and will likely miss week 8, DK Metcalf suffered an MCL sprain and will have to be monitored going forward, the Chiefs wide receiver room somehow got even weaker with JuJu Smith-Schuster already being ruled out for week 8 with a hamstring strain, adding to the list of lost fantasy assets.
There are plenty of teams who have lots of work to do to even be competitive in week 8, but, before we get to that, let’s recap who were the studs and duds from week 7.
Studs of the Week
- Quarterbacks:
- Russell Wilson – Pittsburgh Steelers: Head coach Mike Tomlin never really wavered from when he named Wilson as the team’s starter in preseason. Despite the Steelers having a winning record, he pulled the trigger and benched Justin Fields for Wilson in week 7. Wilson looked rusty in the first half of this game, but really came alive in the second half to blow out the Jets. Wilson wasn’t afraid to throw up jump balls to George Pickens all game which really helped open up the offense as a whole. Despite the injuries the Steelers are facing on their offensive line, Wilson’s deep ball ability helped to open up the run game as much as the pass game. Wilson only finished with 264 yards passing, but threw two touchdowns and rushed in another to finish as the QB5 on the day.
- Lamar Jackson – Baltimore Ravens: Jackson is in line to win his third MVP award. Jackson added another five passing touchdowns in the Ravens win over the Bucs on Monday night, and now has thrown for fifteen touchdowns and just two interceptions on the season, while amassing 455 rushing yards. With the Ravens down 10 – 0, Jackson took over the game the rest of the way leading his team to a 41 – 18 lead in the fourth quarter. Jackson has rushed for over 40 yards in all seven games so far this season, and now that he’s doing a better job protecting the ball, it’s hard to argue that the Ravens don’t have one of the best offenses in the entire NFL.
- Running Backs:
- Jahmyr Gibbs – Detroit Lions: While David Montgomery returned to the game after suffering what originally looked like a serious knee injury, the Detroit Lions wisely limited his workload and let Gibbs take over. Gibbs finished with 116 yards on fifteen carries with two touchdowns. He added another forty four yards through the air, finishing the week as the RB1. This was Gibbs’ second multi touchdown effort in the past three games and was his season high in rushing yards. Gibbs is clearly an elite back and knows how to make the best of his opportunities.
- Joe Mixon – Houston Texas: The Texans offense hasn’t looked good since Nico Collins was placed on IR. Tank Dell has shown a couple flashes, but it really looks like he’s still working his way back from the broken leg he suffered in week 11 of last season. Stefon Diggs hasn’t been that impactful as a receiver despite the increased role. That’s left Mixon to take control of this offense, and he’s blown away all expectations in every game he’s played. In week 7, Mixon rushed twenty five times for 115 yards and two touchdowns. The Texans eventually lost this game to the Green Bay Packers, but without Mixon, this game could have been a blowout. Mixon is second only to Derrick Henry in fantasy points per game, averaging over 100 yards and a touchdown in each contest. With defenses having to focus on CJ Stroud’s ability as a passer, Mixon should continue to find room in the Texans run game going forward.
- Wide Receivers:
- Amon-Ra St. Brown – Detroit Lions: While Gibbs was taking over on the ground, Amon-Ra St. Brown also had his biggest game of the season through the air. St. Brown caught all eight of his targets for 112 yards and a touchdown, good enough to finish as the WR1 on the week. The game extended his scoring streak to four games and marked the second time this season he surpassed 100 receiving yards. He’s the clear leader for this offense in the passing game and is averaging over eight targets per game with a career high 78% catch rate.
- George Pickens – Pittsburgh Steelers: There’s no doubt that Pickens is a mercurial receiver. Despite him seemingly getting along with Justin Fields, it was clear that he wasn’t happy with the offense as a whole with Fields as quarterback. With Russell Wilson stepping in for week 7, Pickens was finally targeted downfield and showed on multiple occasions that he’s one of the best receivers in the league when it comes to making contested catches. Pickens has actually been elite all season long, and if Russ is able to continue to unleash these moon shots for Pickens going forward, he could finish as a top five receiver in fantasy.
- Tight Ends:
- David Njoku – Cleveland Browns: The Browns played three different quarterbacks in this game, but they all wisely knew who was the only viable receiver in this offense. Njoku finished with fourteen targets, which is second most in his career, snagging ten of those targets for seventy six yards and a touchdown. The departure of Amari Cooper has opened up more targets in the Browns struggling offense, so this type of production for Njoku can easily become the norm going forward.
Duds of the Week
- Marvin Harrison Jr. – Arizona Cardinals: The top rookie receiver from last year’s draft continues his up and down season, as Harrison Jr finished the game with just three catches on six targets for twenty one yards. Harrison was a surprise start after suffering a concussion in week 6, so there’s a possibility he actually wasn’t fully healthy, but most fantasy owners were likely forced to start him this week. Harrison had three great weeks from weeks 2-4, but for the most part hasn’t been living up to his second round fantasy draft capital this season.
- Tyreek Hill/Jaylen Waddle – Miami Dolphins: The loss of Tua Tagovailoa has destroyed the fantasy value of all Dolphins this season. Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle combined for two catches for nineteen yards against a weak Colts defense. Head coach Mike McDaniels clearly cannot scheme up a workable offense without Tua, relegating Hill and Waddle into bench stashes at best until Tua returns and this offense gets back to form.
- Deebo Samuel – San Francisco 49ers/Demario Douglas – New England Patriots: While I try to avoid putting injured players into the duds section, I felt the need to shout out both the Patriots and 49ers for leading us down the wrong path with Douglas and Samuel in week 7. The 49ers at least had the decency to let us know that Samuel was dealing with an illness, however they listed him as available prior to the week 7 Super Bowl rematch. Samuel played all of 6% of the team’s snaps, and was then hospitalized with pneumonia after the game putting his week 8 status in question. Douglas, who played in the early morning London game, wasn’t even on any pregame reports. Mid-game, we learned that he was so ill that he had been on an IV for most of the morning and was taking anti-nausea medication. He played ⅓ of the team’s offensive snaps, but didn’t play in the second half of the game finishing with a grand total of fourteen yards. With the amount of information we as fantasy managers have access to, week 7 showed that illnesses are a little bit of a gray area when it comes to injury reports.
Fun Stat from the Weekend
Josh Jacobs was attempting to break the record for the most receptions in the NFL without a receiving touchdown. It took him 212 receptions, 1,564 receiving yards over his 80 game career, but he finally caught a touchdown in week 7, leaving him 30 receptions shy of surpassing Thomas Jones for the record. Despite it being a career-first for the sixth-year running back, Jacobs said he plans to give the ball to Jordan Love since it was also Love’s 50th career passing TD.
-Devon Gallant
Twitter: @DevGallant
Photo: All-Pro Reels. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.