This is a shorter article this week, and quite possibly moving forward. And it should be. We've now reached the midway point in the season, and we have more reasons to stick to our priors on a week-to-week basis than we did when we were dealing with less data. The other reasons it will be shorter is that there is a lot more mystery when it comes to the players who left hurt or might return. Let's run through those real quick and what they could mean.
Christian McCaffrey could be back. There are three possibilities in San Francisco, so stay on your toes. If McCaffrey returns, he's a must-start running back, while both Jordan Mason and Isaac Guerendo are must-roster bench pieces. Mason is also nursing a shoulder injury, so there's also a possibility that Gurendo is the start if the team doesn't think McCaffrey is back. In that case, I would project Gurendo as a top-12 back with a 60% rush share and a 10% target share.
Nico Collins could be back. Like McCaffrey, Collins goes right back into the starting lineup if he's active. In that scenario, Tank Dell goes back to a boom/bust WR3, and CJ Stroud becomes a low-end QB1. If Collins is out, Stroud may stay on the waiver wire.
Dak Prescott suffered a hamstring injury. If he's out for their Week 10 matchup against the Eagles, it will be a 20% downgrade to the pass game efficiency for all Cowboys pass catchers. Prescott hasn't been great this year, but he is a lot better than Cooper Rush.
CeeDee Lamb suffered a shoulder injury. If both Prescott and Lamb are out, I'll probably just bench all of the Cowboys. The more difficult task will be ranking Lamb if Prescott is out and the wide receiver clearly isn't 100%. He's probably a low-end WR2 in that scenario.
A.J. Brown suffered a knee injury. DeVonta Smith is probably a top-five wide receiver if Brown is out. I've already boosted Smith's target share up to 23%, and it could go as high as 25%. Dallas Goedert would also be a must-start if he returns and Brown is out.
Drake London left with a hip injury. You're starting Kirk Cousins, Darnell Mooney, Bijan Robinson, and Kyle Pitts in Week 10, regardless of whether London plays or not. The Saints defense is a mess right now.
Now let's get to what we know is changing in the Week 10 rankings and projections:
Chris Olave is in the concussion protocol
First, we're just happy that Olave is okay after a scary hit that sent him to the hospital on Sunday. We'll project him to miss at least one game, and that will crush the production of Derek Carr, who was already without his WR2, Rashid Shaheed. That led to 35 touches for Alvin Kamara in a Week 9 loss to the Panthers. Kamara may just project as RB1 overall for Week 10. Taysom Hill gets a big boost as well after he saw five targets and scored a rushing touchdown. View Hill as a top-10 tight end in non-PPR and a high-end TE2 in full PPR.
A dose of reality for Joe Flacco and the Colts
I should probably include Fantasy analysts and managers in the above headline. We've all been acting like this would be a huge win for the Colts offense. They just produced 227 total yards of offense and zero offensive touchdowns against the Minnesota Vikings. Now they get to play the Bills. Then the Jets. The Lions are after that. Anthony Richardson may be back sooner than we thought. The biggest changes for Week 10? I'm downgrading Jonathan Taylor's yards per carry and Michael Pittman's overall profile. Taylor will remain a start, and Josh Downs will be a fine number three, but we got a little bit too excited about Flacco starting in Indianapolis.
Must-start Mike Gesicki?
My biggest miss of the week was not reacting enough to the Mike Gesicki splits without Tee Higgins. Higgins missed his fourth game of the 2024 season, and Gesicki had one of the best games of his career, catching five passes for 100 yards and two touchdowns. Gesicki now has 26 targets in four games without Higgins, and he has scored at least 14 PPR points in three of those games. Gesicki will rank as a must-start tight end if the Bengals don't have Higgins in Week 10. On the flipside, he hasn't broken double digits in five games with Higgins.
We have a Jaylen Waddle problem
Waddle scored a touchdown in Week 9 and still didn't score double-digit Fantasy points. That makes six games in a row in single digits for Waddle. The hope was that once Tua Tagovailoa came back, Waddle's season would be saved. Instead, De'Von Achane, Tyreek Hill, and Jonnu Smith have combined for a 65% target share in Tagovailoa's first two games back, while Waddle has settled for a 12.3% rate. We don't really have any doubts about his talents, so we aren't considering dropping Waddle, but he's also not close to a must-start wide receiver right now, either.
Cole Kmet is back in prove-it territory
It has been an uneven season for Cole Kmet, but this was the rock bottom. He did not see a target or record a stat in a game that Caleb Williams threw 41 passes. This after he saw just one target against the Washington Commander. Kmet has shown immense upside this season, he has two games with more the 20 Fantasy points. He's also now has six games with single-digit Fantasy points. I've dropped Kmet's Week 10 target projection to 10%; you should be able to do better.
