Read The Athletic’s latest fantasy football drops advice.
After 10 weeks of writing this column, I have made an amazing discovery.
This column has magical powers.
It can’t leap buildings in a single bound. No eye lasers. It can’t shapeshift into any form of water (The Wonder Twins have to be the lamest superheroes in history), but it can do one thing — if I recommend dropping a player who hails from the NFC East, then said player will go completely ballistic the following week.
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Back in Week 8, I recommended cutting bait on Commanders quarterback Sam Howell, because being wrong is endearing. That week, Howell threw for 397 yards and four scores against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Fast forward to Week 10, and I said it was time to bid goodbye to Dallas wideout Brandin Cooks, who had done next to nothing in his first year with the Cowboys. So of course last week against the New York Giants, Cooks had more receiving yards (173) than in every other game this season put together.
Magic. Powers.
Now, do I feel bad about whiffing on those calls? Maybe a little — I don’t enjoy being wrong. But if I let wrong fantasy calls really bother me, I’d have walked into traffic in 2015.
So remember, if you see an NFC East player here (that may be foreshadowing), know that they might just explode this week.
And no, I’m not putting Cowboys running back Tony Pollard in here just to get him going.
(Rostered Percentages Courtesy of Yahoo)
Will Levis, QB, Tennessee Titans (52 Percent – Droppable in 12-team leagues)
Remember Will Levis? He was fun.
In Levis’ first NFL start back in the long-ago days of Week 8, he threw four touchdown passes, including three to DeAndre Hopkins. He was a waiver wire darling of Week 9. But since then he has, um, cooled considerably, and Levis himself admitted to reporters that he knows he and the Titans have work to do offensively.
“It’s tough as an offense as a whole,” Levis said. “We’ve just got to do a better job at looking introspectively at what we can do better. For me, if we have these games where we’re feeling the flow and they’re on us a little bit quicker, maybe just getting through my reads a little faster. Getting the ball out sooner. It is hard to change the thought process mid-game, but there’s definitely things I could have done better.”
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Is it all on Levis that Tennessee’s offense has turtled? No — the pass protection has been bad, and the run game was non-existent last week. But over the last two games, Levis has fewer touchdown passes than Tommy DeVito, and the same number of touchdown passes as Danny DeVito. Touchdowns are kind of important in fantasy football — or so I hear.
Jahan Dotson, WR, Washington Commanders (74 Percent – Droppable in shallow 12-team leagues)
This is actually Dotson’s second appearance this season in this column, because he’s the sort of nefarious fantasy option who suckers you into picking him back up. After spending most of the first two months of the 2023 season doing nothing (WR61 over the first seven weeks in PPR), Dotson caught 12 passes for 177 yards and two scores in Weeks 8 and 9, telling reporters that it was simply a matter of getting back to what he does best.
“Whenever I’m kind of going through tough times or when things feel off I go back to when I was having success and really hone in on details I was doing to make sure I have that success,” Dotson said. “I was going back watching college film, seeing some of the creative plays I had and different types of routes I was running, and the creativity I was using just to get open. Then going back to daily routines, getting on the jugs (machine) every day. Simple things.”
Apparently what Dotson really does best is crush the hopes and dreams of fantasy managers — with Curtis Samuel (coincidentally) back on the field, Dotson posted his second goose-egg of the season on just two targets last week against the Seahawks. Dotson has three games this season with over 40 receiving yards — and two with none. Nada. Zilch.
He does, however, play in the NFC East. Just saying.
Christian Watson, WR, Green Bay Packers (70 Percent – Droppable in shallow 12-team leagues)
Watson was a trendy breakout pick in many fantasy circles in 2023, and with good reason — from Week 10 on last season, Watson was ninth in PPR points among wide receivers. Instead, Watson has been one of the biggest disappointments at his position in all of fantasy football, and even he admits that the first 10 weeks of this season have been frustrating.
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“It’s frustrating for sure, just with the expectation I have for myself, the goal that I have for myself,” Watson told reporters. “And obviously it’s [frustrating] when we’re not being as successful as we want to be as a team. Just want to find ways to try to make more of an impact. But at the end of the day, I’m only one out of 11 people on the field, so we just need to find a way to get it done as a team.”
Ten weeks into the season, Watson has been all but invisible —his 14 (yes, 14) catches for 236 yards and a touchdown look like a Tyreek Hill stat line from one game. He’s 68th in PPR points per game among wide receivers. He has six catches for 93 yards over the last three games put together. And unless Jordan Love gets blasted by gamma rays that turn him into an actual NFL quarterback, things aren’t going to magically improve down the stretch.
Hunter Henry, TE, New England Patriots (41 Percent – Droppable in 12-team leagues)
Calling the 2023 season a disaster for the New England Patriots is an affront to disasters — the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake at least only lasted 42 seconds instead of 18 weeks (Note: it goes without saying that actual disasters are terrible. But it was almost 120 years ago). The root of New England’s miserable offense this year has been lousy quarterback play, and as The Athletic’s Chad Graff wrote, now that Mac Jones has been benched, the options available to Bill Belichick look a lot like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic (Again, terrible — but over 100 years ago).
“The Patriots’ options for the rest of the season aren’t great,” he said. “They can bench Jones and play (Bailey) Zappe, but he’s no better, and Belichick clearly doesn’t trust him considering the Patriots cut him at the outset of the season. Same for Malik Cunningham. Will Grier is new and might get the next shot at quarterback, because, well, sometimes being new makes quarterbacks seem more appealing. Or maybe they go out and sign someone like Colt McCoy.”
If those options don’t send you scrambling for the lifeboats, nothing will. The reality, as the Patriots hit the bye week, is that the only player on that offense fantasy managers should want any part of is running back Rhamondre Stevenson. In his last six games, Henry has posted six PPR points one time. That ain’t exactly a high bar to clear.
Tyler Higbee, TE. Los Angeles Rams (38 Percent – Droppable in 12-team leagues)
Apparently, the theme of this week’s column is cutting bait on marginally valuable tight ends who are only rostered because of tattered remnants of name recognition. Well, that and disaster humor. What did one Pompeiian say to his neighbor? “Hey, what’s that noise?”
I’ll be here all week, folks. Have some great Chicago Fire material. Get it? Great Chicago Fire?
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What were we talking about?
At best, Higbee was going to be a low-end fantasy TE1 this year — the kind of player you draft when you wait one round too long and every tight end you like even a little gets taken. When last we saw Higbee on the field, he was posting a goose-egg on one target, with head coach Sean McVay telling reporters that Higbee is, ”fighting through a lot of stuff,” and, “playing with something that restricts his right thumb.”
It’s not like Higbee was producing before — Puka Nacua’s emergence meant fewer targets, and Higbee has cracked 10 PPR points all of twice this season. If Higbee’s your backup tight end, then you can probably do better. If he’s your starter?
Well then you know all about disasters.
Gary Davenport is a two-time FSWA Football Writer of the Year. When he isn’t making bad disaster jokes or advocating cutting third-tier tight ends, he gives out equally witty (and often wrong) advice on Twitter at @IDPSharks
(Top photo: Paul Rutherford-USA TODAY Sports)
