Fantasy football is the closest thing to a sports Wall Street—you pick players, and based on their performance, you either reap the benefits or sulk in despair. Consider me your stock broker who helps you analyze trends and determine the next moves accordingly. Imagine being the last person with shares of Blockbuster, watching your neighbor swim in piles of cash because they got in on Netflix from the jump.
An isolated great or terrible game could mean nothing or everything. It’s complicated, sure, but if it were easy, everyone would do it. After crunching the numbers and watching hours of tape, I’ve uncovered the highest risers and fastest fallers heading into Week 3.
The Risers
Kyler Murray
The most forgotten signal caller in the league due to injuries and incompetent coaching, Kyler Murray is unequivocally a star. Yes, Murray is short, but he’s a generational athlete. The 27-year-old is a figure skater in the pocket, graceful yet powerful, with pinpoint agility and precision. Even with the most peculiar running style in football, he has blazing speed that burns defenders.
So far this season, Murray has had a perennial Super Bowl contender on the ropes and a perfect passer rating against a division foe. The Cardinals have invested around him with stud positional players and a revamped offensive line. Add in an entire off-season with offensive coordinator Drew Petzing, and the former Heisman Trophy winner is in the best situation of his career. If he’s upright, Murray is a top-five fantasy QB with unlimited upside.
Brock Bowers
The real baby Gronk, Brock Bowers, is already a safety’s worst nightmare. It’s no surprise one of the best tight ends in the history of college football has immediately started to dominate as a pro. With Gardner Minshew at the helm, it was unclear how many targets the rookie would muster alongside future Hall of Fame wideout Davante Adams.
The 21-year-old is so talented that the Raiders were running designed tight-end screens for him against a once-heralded Ravens defense. Bowers is a crisp route runner who is effortless in and out of his breaks. He can line up anywhere on offense and corral any pass in a ten-mile radius. Every week, he needs to be on a DFS radar, and Bowers is a guy to target before he fully explodes onto the scene.
Jameson Williams
One of my preseason fantasy sleepers, Jameson Williams, is much more than a go-route merchant. A track star on the outside, it was untimely misfortunes that derailed his ascension. As a rookie, Williams was recovering from a torn ACL suffered while at Alabama. His second season only started after serving a four-game suspension for violating the league’s gambling policy.
With an entire off-season to ramp up for actual competition out of the gate, the former first-round pick has shined in a big way. At 6’1, he’s taller than most receivers of his archetype, which allows him not to get jammed as easily at the line of scrimmage. Amon-Ra St.Brown occupies heavy volume, but teams are starting to hone in on him underneath where he makes his living.
That opens up real estate 10+ yards down the field for inbreaking routes, where Williams can get a head of steam and rack up yards after the catch. With top receivers dropping like flies and the 23-year-old likely stashed on someone’s bench, now is the perfect time to buy in.
The Fallers
Bryce Young
Bryce Young was too incompetent to start for the most dysfunctional team in the NFL. There’s no need to take a flier in a dynasty league and sell at whatever minuscule value he has left because it truly will only get worse.
Michael Pittman Jr.
This one hurts because it has nothing to do with Michael Pittman Jr.’s abilities, but everything to do with how erratic his quarterback is. Despite a revolving door of Colts‘ passers, the USC product has surpassed 900 yards each of the last three years. His footwork is stellar, and he can highpoint the ball with the best of them. Everything that makes him special is irrelevant, with Anthony Richardson under center.
The jury is still out on whether Richardson is the future in Indianapolis, but in the present, it’s crystal clear he provides a disastrous floor for this offense. His cannon arm is enticing for a Twitter clip, but it doesn’t work when he can’t pinpoint a ball to someone wide open in the flat. Pittman Jr. does most of his work within the sticks, where Richardson struggles the most with fundamental accuracy.
Until his situation changes, Pittman Jr. isn’t even worth stashing on the bench or as a deep-league FLEX option.
Rachaad White
Rachaad White suffered a groin injury on Sunday, which has nothing to do with this entry. The 25-year-old is an excellent receiver out of the backfield but an abysmal running back. He has a career 3.6 YPC on over 400 attempts, which is a large enough sample size to realize he struggles between the tackles.
Oregon rookie Bucky Irving has far better vision and power, which can help unlock more play-action for this potent Tampa offense. Sooner or later, the team will realize this, too, and White will be relegated to evident passing-down work. In PPR formats, his outputs will never fully crater due to his receptions, but his workload is due to plummet. Jump the curve and unload now.
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