The Raiders are officially ready to start a new era this weekend as No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza takes over as the starting quarterback in place of Kirk Cousins, who was traded to the Minnesota Vikings at the trade deadline. Lining up next to Mendoza in the backfield will be last year’s No. 6 overall pick, Ashton Jeanty. In his second season, Jeanty has flashed a high ceiling but has struggled lately. With a new option under center, will Jeanty be able to regain momentum? Can the offense improve and be rebuilt around Jeanty as the focal point? In the short term, should Jeanty be in your lineup this week in Mendoza’s debut against the Seahawks?
Let’s take a look at the latest on Jeanty’s workload and what could be the approach this week, while considering if he should be a start or a sit for fantasy teams this week.
Ashton Jeanty Start or Sit Advice for Week 10
Jeanty had 975 rushing yards on 266 carries with 55 catches and 346 receiving yards as a rookie. He had five receiving scores and five rushing touchdowns for a promising season for his fantasy prospects.
With new coach Klint Kubiak in place, the team’s offense as a whole has been better under Cousins, but Jeanty has faded a little into the background. His season started with an outstanding performance, as he racked up 35.7 FPTS on 100+ rushing yards, six catches and two receiving touchdowns.
Since then, though, he has been much less productive, rushing for under 30 yards in each of his last four games. He did have a solid 21.6 FPTS against the Rams in Week 7, mostly as a receiver. He hauled in eight catches for 61 yards and another score in that game.
Overall this season, Jeanty has 362 rushing yards on 114 carries while catching 42 of his 55 targets for 371 receiving yards. Three of his four total touchdowns also came as a pass-catcher, and his involvement in the passing game has been enough to help him be relatively consistent with 10+ FPTS in eight straight weeks, until finishing with just 7.0 FPTS in Week 9.
Over the last few weeks, he has fallen into more of a timeshare with Mike Washington Jr., who has played about one-third of the snaps. In Week 8, Washington saw a huge jump to 60% of snaps, and coach Klint Kubiak said Wednesday that the breakdown in carries between Washington and Jeanty will be determined on a week-to-week basis. The next week, though, the timeshare was almost back to the exact same as in previous weeks.
Neither back was effective in Week 9, as the team fell behind by multiple scores early and mostly abandoned the run. With Mendoza taking over at quarterback, it remains to be seen whether the Raiders will adjust their offensive approach, but Kubiak has indicated that both backs will continue to be involved
In addition to the timeshare, the other big concern with Jeanty is his matchup this week against the Seahawks. Seattle has been good against the run this season, allowing just under 70 rushing yards per game to opposing running backs and surrendering seven rushing touchdowns.
The upside on Jeanty is that he has a very high ceiling and has proven he can be involved as a pass-catcher. That’s enough to keep him as a FLEX option in PPR leagues despite his concerning issues. He isn’t the top-end RB1 or even a lock as an RB2 after his recent struggles, but he still has enough upside and potential to be an RB3, FLEX, or bye-week fill-in this week.
For DFS contests, Jeanty’s salary has dropped all the way to $5,400 after being over $7,000 for several weeks this season. Even in a tough matchup his PPR production and touchdown potential make him an intriguing value play to consider, especially since he probably won’t be extremely popular in GPP tournaments like the NFL $2.5M Fantasy Football Millionaire [$1M to 1st].
