🙏🏻 2 Star WRs Avoid Major Injuries

The fantasy gods heard our prayers...

In today’s Fantasy Life Newsletter presented by Bud Light:

This had been an extremely brutal week for injuries, but we got two really encouraging pieces of news overnight:

🙏🏻 DK Metcalf will play today

This seems vaguely miraculous after he was carted off the field last Sunday with a patella tendon injury. The initial timeline was a multi-week absence, so this is truly a best-case scenario. There's obviously some risk that he's not 100%, but I'd consider him a rock solid WR3 with upside for more. 

🙏🏻 Ja'Marr Chase will be back soon

He won't play vs. the Bengals tomorrow, but Chase will not be placed on IR with his hip injury as initially expected. The Bengals have their bye in Week 10, so it seems logical that he'd miss the next two weeks and return healthy for Week 11. 

For all of your other Week 7 needs, including the biggest pieces of overnight news, FantasyLife.com has you covered. Be sure to take advantage of all our free tools on the site and follow our Twitter account for any late-breaking news updates:

• INACTIVES - updated at 11:30am ET for 1pm games

• RANKINGS - Full Week 7 rankings for multiple scoring settings from Dwain, Waz, and Hill.

• FANTASY LIFE TWITTER - If news breaks, we'll have it.

• START/SIT TOOL - Debating who to start? Simply type in both players to this tool and we'll tell you the best option:

• PLAYER PROPS TOOL - Our newly updated props tool is here to give you the best bets for each game.

🍺 Fantasy Life 🤝 Bud Light

📁 Ryan Tannehill will not play

Tannehill is both ill and dealing with an ankle sprain, which means Titans rookie QB Malik Willis will get his first career start. Both Willis and Sam Ehlinger are reasonable spot starts today, considering how much they are likely to run. This is a downgrade for Robert Woods, and whatever other Titans pass catchers you wouldn't consider using anyways.

📁 Will Darren Waller play?

We don't have official news yet on Waller, who has not played since Week 4. This is one you'll need to monitor on our Inactives page at 11:30 am et. He's officially listed as questionable and did get in some limited practices this week, so there's hope he can suit up vs. the Raiders. If he doesn't, Foster Moreau is on the TE streamer radar yet again.

📁 Brandin Cooks

It's been a wild week for Cooks. He's been the subject of trade rumors and popped up on the injury report with a wrist injury after being a full participant on Friday. Despite all that, he's expected to play today vs. the Titans. He projects for a ton of volume with Nico Collins out.

📁 Cam Akers sticking in LA?

While it seemed like the end of the Akers era with the Rams after his falling out with the coaching staff, the team insists they won't part ways if they are unable to trade him. It'll be interesting to see if any other team would be willing to part with a pick for him, but I'm not holding my breath,

🚀 We have a TE explosion spot today. Fire him up.

🤯 The lead back for the Rams tomorrow might surprise you. Matthew has the sleeper.

🙏🏻 The RB begging to be released. FREE HIM.

🔒 A sneaky add to make before lock. I dig it.

🥵 An elite RB who has a low rostership in DFS? Sign me up. 

☎️ NFL trade rumors are everywhere. Updates on Kareem Hunt, Broncos WRs.

🔎 Is Tony Pollard a MUST play in DFS? Find out what the experts are saying. 

❌ If you drafted Will Fuller on your best ball teams...don't click this.

When playing DFS, we want to correlate our lineups because it means we have to get fewer things right. Tournaments have such top-heavy payout structures that when you are right, you want to be right in a big way. That’s where stacking teams and games come into play. Today, Eliot shares his favorite game to stack...

🚀Tua Tagovailoa > Tyreek Hill (Bring Back: Amon-Ra St. Brown)

Sunday’s main slate is missing many of the league's top offenses (Bills, Chiefs, Chargers, Ravens, Bengals, and Buccaneers) and there is only one game with a 50+ point total, the Dolphins vs Lions. The Dolphins travel to Detroit to take on the Lions and their defense allowing the most points and yards per game.

It’s scary, just how bad this Lions’ defense is.

After allowing the most points in NFL history through the first four weeks, things have not gotten much better. They rank 32nd in weighted DVOA and pass defense DVOA while being bottom five covering short, deep, left, and right sides of the field. (Editors Note: It seems like the Lions are pretty bad on defense)

This game also takes place in a dome, which historically increases scoring by 9% and leads to teams with speed having an advantage. No team has more speed than the Dolphins, with Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle, Raheem Mostert, and Mike Gesicki all being top 5 at their respective positions.

Tua Tagovailoa comes in as Run the Sims' highest projected rostered QB of the slate, and for good reason. We have Tua projected for the most passing yards and fantasy points on the slate. He leads the NFL in yards per attempt (8.6) and has been excellent on deep balls, completing passes at a 58.6% rate, which is good for the third-highest rate in the NFL. The Lions have allowed the second-highest yards per attempt against them this year, and 12% of pass attempts against them have gone deep. Tua should dominate them.

You could pick any of the Dolphins' top receiving threats and I wouldn’t argue against them. If I am playing multiple teams I would want to spread my exposure between Hill, Waddle, Mostert, and Gesicki. However, if I only get one bullet, I want to fire it with Tyreek Hill. 

Hill is leading the league in receiving yards and targets while commanding a 39.5% share of his team’s air yards and 32.4% of their targets. This week, we have Hill projected for another massive workload of 12.3 targets. Since 2020, Hill has 15 games of 12+ targets and is averaging a ludicrous 31.4 fantasy points on 10.3 receptions, 139 receiving yards, and 1 touchdown per game.

It’s a big number, but I am confidently betting Hill over 86.5 at BetMGM.

We were all excited about Amon-Ra St. Brown last week against the Cowboys, but he left the game with a concussion and couldn't pass the new protocol to return for Week 7. St. Brown is fully healthy and ready to go; we’re going back to the well this week. 

St. Brown has dominated target share against man coverage this season, seeing 38% of the Lions' targets. He now takes on a Dolphins defense that plays the fourth-most man coverage.

As you've probably heard, SNF marks the first time in his career that Aaron Rodgers has been a double-digit underdog (+11).

The Packers face the brutal task of travelling to Buffalo to play a rested Bills team coming off the bye in a game with a 47 point over/under.

Both teams enter the matchup relatively healthy and we'd be remiss not to mention the Sammy Watkins revenge game narrative.

Here's everything we like tonight from a fantasy, DFS, and betting perspective:  All odds via BetMGM...

Every Sunday we'll highlight two interesting matchups you should be aware of before setting your lineup. Take it away, Kevin...

🥵️ Tony Pollard vs. CHI

Over the first six weeks of the season — which includes Dak Prescott’s first game and all of Cooper Rush’s starts — the Cowboys have been in the bottom quarter of the NFL in overall pass rate percentage at 54%. You could make a case that the Cowboys would use a more conservative approach to their offense with Rush under center, but with Prescott back as starting QB, the Cowboys in Week 7 continued to skew run-heavy.

That offensive approach shouldn’t change too much in Week 8.

With Ezekiel Elliott listed as doubtful this week against the Bears, the stars are aligning for Tony Pollard to take a considerable leap in workload. In four games where Pollard has double-digit opportunities, he’s scored a touchdown or put up 100 total yards in three of them. The Bears have also been horrible against the run, giving up the third-most rushing yards per game (149.7) and allowing the most rush attempts per game this season.

As if you needed more convincing, this week’s Fantasy Life Podcast has “Start This Man” and Pollard on the cover with the title: “It’s Tony Pollard Time”.

Pollard’s going to crush in Week 8.

🥵️ D.J. Moore @ ATL

We got a glimmer of hope last week with D.J. Moore as he finally put together a usable week for fantasy managers. He caught 7-of-10 targets for 69 yards and a touchdown in Week 7 in a week where no other Panther earned more than three targets. Moore also had massive team-level shares of air yards (51%) and target share (47%). The post-Christian McCaffrey era for the Panthers likely consolidates the passing game to Moore going forward.

Lucky for us, the biggest roadblock to a Moore smash week is removed from the equation.

QB P.J. Walker should have a much easier time passing against the Falcons as their top CB, A.J Terrell, is out with a hamstring injury. That makes Terrell the third member of the starting Falcons’ secondary not suiting up, following S Jaylinn Hawkins and starting CB Casey Hayward. The Falcons are also the WORST team in the NFL in allowing fantasy points to the WRs. 

The Panthers' offense looked better last week, and advocating for Moore leans into that improvement against the best possible matchup for WR. If you can’t start Moore in Week 8, when can you?