Fantasy Football Week 7 Wide Receiver Preview: Minus Watkins again, young Chiefs WRs in play on TNF

Sammy Watkins has been ruled out for Week 7. It's a terrible thing for his Fantasy owners and I'm sure the Chiefs will miss him, but there are three young receivers with one more opportunity to shine. It just so happens to come in primetime. 

Tyreek Hill will draw Chris Harris for most of the night, and there is a little history of secondary receivers having success against this defense. Adam Humphries, Mike Williams, Dede Westbrook, Marquez Valdes-Scantling have all led their team in receiving and scored at least 10 PPR Fantasy points against the Broncos. 

Of course, the problem with the Chiefs is figuring out which secondary guy it will be. 

Demarcus Robinson shined in Week 2 and hauled in a touchdown in Week 3 but has 66 yards in his past two games combined and was shut out in Week 6.

Mecole Hardman had his best game in Week 3 with 97 yards and a touchdown but then followed that up with two catches for nine yards against the Lions. He's been better than Robinson the past two weeks, but not as good as Byron Pringle. 

Pringle made his first real impact in Week 5 with both Watkins and Hill out, catching six passes for 103 yards and a score. He's caught 10 of his 14 targets this season and he's averaging better than 10 yards per target.

Any of these receiver could catch a 50-yard bomb from Mahomes this week and help your Fantasy team. But who is the most likely?

In terms of opportunity, Pringle has 12 targets over the past two games, while Hardman and Robinson both have 10. But Pringle only played 34 snaps last week, compared to 50 for Robinson. Hardman was even worse with 32 snaps. 

I have these receivers projected for very similar target shares with Pringle being slightly better in PPR because the types of targets I expect him to run out of the slot should lead to a higher catch rate. Robinson is still my second favorite because he's playing so much more than the other two and Hardman is a very close third. 

If you're desperate at receiver this week, you could do a lot worse than any of these Chiefs receivers. 

Week 7 WR Preview

The following players are not being projected to play Week 7 at this time. Here's what it means:

• 52% - Terry McLaurin's share of Washington's air yards. He's the only receiver above 50%. It's hard to bench him even against a terrible matchup.
• 10.9 - DeAndre Hopkins' average depth of target. That's down from last year and well below Will Fuller. That's made even worse by the fact that his target share is down. 
• 9.9 - Tyler Boyd's targets per game. I'm not going to let Week 6 scare me away from him. 
• 5 - Alshon Jeffery's aDOT in Week 6. He's getting peppered with targets, but seeing very little down the field. That causes a disparity in his value in PPR vs. non-PPR.
• 16.8 - Darius Slayton's average targeted air yards. He could be a nice boom-or-bust flex until Sterling Shepard returns. 
• 100% - JuJu Smith-Schuster's on-target catch rate. Don't do anything silly with him during his bye week. When Mason Rudolph returns, he'll be a fine starter.

So who should you sit and start this week? And which surprising quarterback could lead you to victory? Visit SportsLine now to get Week 7 rankings for every position, plus see which QB is going to come out of nowhere to crack the top 10, all from the model that out-performed experts big time last season.