😭 4 Impact Players Put On IR

All dogs go to heaven, and all the best fantasy stars go to IR…

In today’s Fantasy Life Newsletter presented by props.cash:

The “Injured Reserve” got a workout with four fantasy stars all getting sent there yesterday.

“Mr. IR” (he makes you call him that, for some reason, I don’t make the rules) locks these men up for at least four games, but it could be even longer for a few of our favorite fantasy assets.

Grab a tissue box, and let’s dig in…

😭 Justin Jefferson out indefinitely?

As feared, the Vikings placed Jefferson on IR yesterday.

It’s a brutal blow that is further complicated by his contract situation and Minnesota’s abysmal record, which could lead to a tear-down scenario if the team continues to lose games.

✍️ Fantasy Implications

While The Athletic reports that K.J. Osborn will “slide seamlessly into the ‘X’ receiver role,” I’m much more skeptical. The biggest beneficiaries here are TE T.J. Hockenson and rookie WR Jordan Addison.

As Dwain noted in his Utilization Report, Addison registered a 100% route participation and 25% target share after Jefferson left the game.

😭 Anthony Richardson out 4-8 weeks

Richardson will miss four weeks at minimum with his shoulder injury, although his absence could extend even longer if the injury ultimately requires surgery:

✍️ Fantasy Implications

The biggest hit here is simply to Richardson managers, who were on their way to enjoying a Top-5 QB season at QB10 prices.

Gardner Minshew will step in as his replacement and should be perfectly serviceable as a backup. He’ll keep the offense functional and get the ball to Michael Pittman Jr. and Josh Downs, but the offense will be far less dynamic without Richardson.

This could also expedite the Jonathan Taylor ramp-up.

😭 De’Von Achane out until Week 11

The Dolphins placed Achane on IR while he rehabs his knee. Because he will miss the team’s next four games and the Dolphins have a bye in Week 10, we won’t see Achane back in action until Week 11 at the earliest.

✍️ Fantasy Implications

We broke down this backfield in the newsletter yesterday, so we won’t belabor the situation too much.

The big update here is that Jeff Wilson Jr. practiced yesterday. If he suits up on Sunday, he immediately becomes fantasy-relevant alongside Raheem Mostert (more on him below). The Dolphins are 13.5-point favorites vs. the Panthers.

😭 James Conner out for 4 games

Conner (knee) rounds out the skill position players who were placed on IR yesterday.

✍️ Fantasy Implications

The main update since we last discussed this backfield was the team listing Keaontay Ingram, who had been out with a neck injury, as the starter on their depth chart and not Emari Demercado.

Still, Demercado’s pass-catching role makes him the more interesting stash of the two:

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It is time to make those tough lineup decisions for Week 6 of the fantasy football season. Below you’ll find Dwain’s thoughts on some must-start players. Find all of our positional rankings here.

👑 Running Back

🥇 Tier 1 – Raheem Mostert

They say timing is everything, and the saying holds for Mostert in Week 6. With De’Von Achane placed on IR, the veteran speedster finds himself atop the Dolphins pecking order just in time for a matchup against a Panthers defense, giving up the fifth-most rushing yards per game (141) in regulation play.

In the first two weeks of the season before Achane was a thing, Mostert handled over 70% of the snaps, 58% of rushing attempts and delivered 19.5 points per game.

Jeff Wilson returned to practice on Wednesday but might not be ready to return in Week 6 – the Dolphins have 21 days to activate the veteran back. Even if Wilson does return, he probably won’t be prepared to take on his regular duties.

That leaves Salvon Ahmed and Chris Brooks as the primary challengers for at least one more week.

In Weeks 1 and 2, Ahmed was a near non-factor with only 24% of snaps with six total rushing totes. We could see this duo salt away the fourth quarter if the Dolphins want to protect Mostert, but that also means Mostert probably already banked the fantasy points we crave.

While Achane’s blowup performances stole all the headlines, Mostert has been extremely efficient in his own right in 2023.

• 10-plus yard attempts: 17% (3rd out of 42 backs with at least 30 attempts)

• Average yards after contact: 3.4 (9th)

• Missed tackles forced per attempt: 26% (9th)

• PFF Run Grade: 90.2 (2nd)

The Dolphins backfield has also been highly active in the passing game, with Mostert and Achane combining for 22 targets in a three-week period. Mostert should be in store for a 60%-plus route participation role, which means a healthy dose of targets is in the range of outcomes.

The Dolphins are nearly two TD favorites, and the Panthers allow the sixth-most rushing attempts per game (29). Opposing rushers have crushed Carolina for 24.9 points per contest – the second-most in the NFL.

No other team carries a higher team total than Miami’s 31 on the Week 6 slate. Every detail aligns in favor of Mostert being one of the best plays on the slate.

Mostert is a SMASH PLAY as my RB2 and a top-5 play overall.

💥 Running Back

🥉 Tier 3 – Isiah Pacheco

Excluding Week 1, when Pacheco was still not 100% healthy, and the fourth quarter in a blowout win over the Bears in Week 3, Pacheco has accounted for 63% or more of the Chiefs rushing attempts every contest since Week 2. Last week, that hit a season-high of 76%.

The second-year back has quietly turned himself into a mid-range RB2, averaging 15.5 points per game since Week 2. While Jerick McKinnon still handles most of the passing-down work, Pacheco’s involvement in the passing game has improved.

His 16% TPRR is seven percentage points higher from 2022. He isn’t a high-end receiving back, but the Chiefs don’t have many weapons outside of Travis Kelce, which can help boost archetypes like Pacheco.

We caught a glimpse of what a ceiling game for Pacheco looks like with his 25-point performance in Week 4, and that is what could be in store against the best matchup in fantasy football, the Broncos. At some point, I will have to start working harder and find something different to write about than the players facing the Broncos, but it is REALLY hard to express just how bad things are in Denver (so I will do it again this week).

• Fantasy points allowed per game rushing: 28.3 (1st)

• Rushing yards allowed per game: 187 (1st and the next closest team is 23 yards behind)

• Rushing TDs allowed per game: 1.6 (2nd)

Pacheco is a physical runner who ranks 11th in missed tackles forced (24%) and sixth in average yards after contact (3.6), and the Broncos are the worst-tackling unit in the league according to PFF grades. The Chiefs are 10.5 favorites on Thursday night and have plenty of opportunities to lean heavily on their No. 1 runner.

Pacheco UPGRADES to high-end RB2 status as a top-25 fantasy option.

The Fantasy Life FREE Bet Tracker is already loaded with a handful of plays for Thursday Night Football, and Matthew Freedman is here to give you a peek behind the curtain with one of his best bets for the game…

Looking for more Thursday Night Football bets PLUS more bets for Week 6 (including HOT TAKES)?! Tune in to see what these three experts are betting…

🤔 What’s going on with Deshaun Watson? He didn’t practice yesterday.

🚀 A WR on the verge of breakout out. BUY HIM NOW!

😆 This new Cardinals RB is enjoying his fantasy relevance. He just doesn’t know what to say.

🏈 Patrick Mahomes vs. a historically bad defense? Oh boy. Everything you need for TNF betting and DFS showdown contests.

😡 Don’t watch this if you drafted Jahmyr Gibbs. You’ll get triggered.

📺 EVERYTHING you need to know for Week 6. A Fantasy OG, an All-Pro WR, and your favorite fantasy analysts walk into a bar.

🐬 Teams with the most 15+ yard receptions through Week 5. One of these isn’t a team.

🎼 Wondering why I drafted Kyle Pitts at all? Lol, nice work fellas.

🌟 George Kittle fined for his profane shirt. Lol.

💋 The only way to combat the tush push. Kisses?

Every week, Matthew Freedman publishes a piece highlighting some of his favorite fantasy plays. Naturally, this piece is called “Freedman’s Favorites”. We told him to get more creative, to which he answered with a resounding “No”. Anyway, here are his favorites for Week 6…

🌟 QB Kirk Cousins (Vikings) at Bears

• Vikings: -2.5

• O/U: 45 

• TT: 23.75

It’s easy to dog on Cousins -- especially now that No. 1 WR Justin Jefferson (hamstring, IR) is out -- but he has at least 3,500 yards and 25 TDs passing in each of his five full seasons with the Vikings, and this year he leads the league with 13 passing TDs and is the only player with multiple TDs passing in all five games played.

Last year he completed an absurd 80.3% of his passes in two games against the Bears, who are No. 31 in defensive dropback EPA (0.291, per RBs Don’t Matter).

🌟 RB David Montgomery (Lions) at Buccaneers

• Lions: -3

• O/U: 44

• TT: 23.5

Montgomery exited Week 2 early with a thigh injury and missed Week 3, but in Weeks 1, 4 & 5 he had a dominant 344 yards and five TDs on 72 carries and six targets. For the season, he leads the league with 12 broken tackles forced.

With 1,000-plus yards and 25-plus receptions in each of his four full NFL seasons (2019-22 Bears), Montgomery has a three-down skill set.

He could be without No. 2 RB Jahmyr Gibbs (hamstring), who missed last week as a late addition to the injury report, and the Buccaneers are No. 29 in defensive rush SR (45.3%).

I’m not a big bettor in the anytime TD market, but Montgomery has an NFL-high eight carries inside the five-yard line, and he has scored a TD in every game played this year. Plus, last week he narrowly missed out on two TDs by getting tackled at the one-yard line (sheesh, right?).

🌟 WR D.J. Moore (Bears) vs. Vikings

• Bears: +2.5

• O/U: 45

• TT: 21.25

Moore didn’t start the season strong (2-25-0 receiving on two targets in Week 1), but since Week 2 he has 25-506-5 receiving on 32 targets -- and Moore led the league in scoring last week with 45 fantasy points.

And it’s not as if this recent production is a fluke: He was productive (5,201 yards receiving, 335 yards rushing) and efficient (8.4 yards per target, 8.6 yards per carry) with the Panthers for the first half-decade of his career before joining the Bears this offseason -- despite dealing with subpar QB play.

The Vikings are No. 4 in most fantasy points allowed to WRs (38.2 FPPG).

🌟 Gabe Davis (Bills) vs. Giants

• Bills: -14

• O/U: 45

• TT: 29.55

Even since HC Sean McDermott -- after the team’s Week 1 loss -- implicitly called out Davis by saying that the team needed someone to step up behind No. 1 WR Stefon Diggs, he has balled out with an efficient 16-288-4 receiving on 22 targets.

Davis is unlikely ever to live up to the hype he carried with him into the 2022 campaign after his 8-201-4 receiving performance on 10 targets against the Chiefs in the Divisional Round the prior year -- but he’s still an explosive playmaker with 9.4 yards per target for his career, and he’s attached to QB Josh Allen.

The Giants are No. 30 in defensive dropback EPA (0.166).

 🌟 TE Dallas Goedert (Eagles) at Rams

• Eagles: -7

• O/U: 41

• TT: 24

Goedert was unspeakably bad for the first month of the season (13-88-0 receiving, 19 targets) -- and then last week he went off with 8-117-1 receiving on nine targets.

And it’s not as if this was out of nowhere: He has an elite 95.2% snap rate this year and a position-high 91% route rate. In his two-plus seasons under HC Nick Sirianni, Goedert has averaged 5.4 targets per game and 10.0 yards per target, and last year he was the No. 1 TE with an 88% route rate.

The Jets are No. 1 in most fantasy points allowed to TEs (14.5 FPPG).