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By Steven Van Tassell (@SteveVT33)
Week 10 saw the end of an era in the NFL and Dynasty Owner. With Matthew Stafford ($27,000,000) out of action for the first time since he was traded to the Rams, Cooper Kupp ($15,750,000) was on his own and there were questions about how he would perform without Stafford. The answer was disastrous for the defending Super Bowl Champions as Kupp finished the Rams’ 27-17 loss to the Arizona Cardinals with just 2.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (3 receptions for -1 yard) and left the game in the fourth quarter with an ankle injury. Kupp was placed on Injured Reserve (IR) and there is a good chance that his 2022 season is over. If the Rams don’t win some games without him in the lineup and make a push for the playoffs, he might be out for the rest of the season. If that happens, it’ll be the end of an era of Kupp and Stafford as the 2020s version of Jerry Rice with Joe Montana for the 49ers in the late 1980s, Jerry Rice with Steve Young in the early 1990s, and Michael Irvin with Troy Aikman for the Cowboys in the 1990s as well. It was a shorter run for Stafford and Kupp than those pairs with only one Super Bowl, but they also have only played 25 games together.
What a 25-game stretch it was though. Stafford was great in 2021 and finished tied as QB5 in Dynasty Owner, while Kupp was WR1 and had the 7th most points overall with 440.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. It was nearly as dominant as Christian McCaffrey’s ($16,015,875) 2019 season when he had 482.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in one fewer game and finished as RB1 and the overall #2 player. However, with his high ankle sprain and minimum of 4-game stint on IR, it’s officially over. At least most likely for this season.
In the 25 games that Kupp and Stafford played together, Kupp scored double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points in all of them. Let me repeat that. All of them. He’s the only player with a streak that long. Austin Ekeler ($6,125,000) is working on a 19-game streak and Stefon Diggs ($14,400,000) has a 14-game streak. Travis Kelce ($14,312,500) and Saquon Barkley ($7,217,000) have also scored double-digit Dynasty Owner in all nine games they have played this season, but Kelce’s current streak is “only” 12 games and Barkley finished the 2021 season with a 7.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy point effort against Washington. That’s the list.
Even back in 2019 when McCaffrey had 482.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, he still had only 7.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 2. He finished the last 14 games in 2019 with double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points and kept the streak going for all three games he played in 2020 and the first two games of the 2021 season. That was a total of 19 games in a row with double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points.
That’s one reason why it’s the end of an era with Kupp’s injury. The other is that it’s going to be very difficult for another non-QB to have 400.0 or more Dynasty Owner fantasy points in a season, even with the increase to a 17-game NFL regular season. Tyreek Hill ($18,000,000) is our scoring leader among non-QBs with 221.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, but he has already played 10 games. His bye is this week. His average is 22.12 points per game for a total of 376.04 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. He would need to average just over 25.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game to get to 400. Stefon Diggs has the highest average with 23.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game and Austin Ekeler and Justin Jefferson ($3,280,701) are very close behind with averages of over 23.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game. Even if Diggs maintained that average over his final 8 games, he would finish with 399.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points.
To reach that 400.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy point mark, a player has to be good, stay healthy and avoid low-scoring weeks. It also helps to have a steady presence at QB. That’s how Kupp did it in 2021 and how Ekeler, Diggs and Jefferson are nearly on pace and could do it in 2022. Losing Josh Allen ($43,005,667), Justin Herbert ($6,644,688), or Kirk Cousins ($33,000,000) could throw it off for Diggs, Ekeler or Jefferson even without an injury. After all, Kupp was on his way to not scoring double-digit points before he got hurt. The injury just sealed his fate.
You’re not going to find any of the players listed above in the first part of this weekly recommendations article. That’s because it will contain a player at each position (QB, RB, WR, TE) who you should have as a Starter in your Dynasty Owner lineup, but who isn’t an obvious choice and might usually be on your Bench or Practice Squad or even available in the Free Agent Auction. After that, I’ll name one player per position who is playing well and is normally in your Starting lineup, but who should be on your Bench or Practice Squad. All of the players mentioned earlier could be in this part. Spoiler alert, they’re not.
For the purposes of this article, all statistics, ADP and Dynasty Owner roster percentages were current as of the morning of Saturday, November 19th.
These Guys Should be Starters This Week
First, we’ll check on how my Week 10 recommendations fared (Good, Bad or Just Ok). I predicted that the following four players would have Dynasty Owner Starting lineup worthy performances in Week 10.
QB: Jacoby Brissett (CLE – $4,650,000) – 20.6 (Just Ok recommendation)
RB: Jaylen Warren (PIT – $857,333) – 10.7 (Just Ok recommendation)
WR: Tre’Quan Smith (NO – $3,000,000) – 0.0 (Bad recommendation)
TE: Tyler Higbee (LAR – $7,250,000) – 15.3 (Good recommendation)
With one Good, two Just Ok and one Bad recommendation for the week, my overall recommendations record barely changed. It now stands at 33% Good, 53% Bad and 13% Just Ok. This was the first week all season in which I had two Just Ok recommendations. In six out of ten weeks, I’ve had none.
This week, Jacoby Brissett was outside of the top 12 QBs, but only by a couple of points with 20.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. In some other weeks, he may have been a low-end Starting QB, but there were a lot of QBs in the 20.0 to 25.0 point range this week. The recommendation of Jaylen Warren was also Just Ok as he was a low-end RB2 with 10.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. He did outscore his fellow Steelers’ RB Najee Harris ($3,261,862) who had just 8.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. The return of Jarvis Landry ($3,000,000) meant fewer snaps and no targets for Tre’Quan Smith who turned in a Blutarsky (0.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points) and a Bad recommendation. I’ve still yet to recommend a Good Starting WR here. Finally, Tyler Higbee was a Good recommendation as he was a top 5 TE with 15.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points. This was despite the lack of a TD, although the end of the Cooper Kupp era definitely helped Higbee.
Overall, it was another mixed bag of recommendations. I’m still trying for a perfect week with four Good Starting lineup recommendations. Here are the players who I think will make that a reality in Week 11.
Jimmy Garoppolo (SF – $7,000,000): Dynasty Owners need QB depth. This is abundantly clear in a week like this as four top 12 QBs are on bye. All of them are fairly inexpensive with the G.O.A.T. Tom Brady ($15,000,000) having the highest salary. Chances are that a lot of Dynasty Owners with Geno Smith ($3,500,000), Tua Tagovailoa ($7,568,859) and Trevor Lawrence ($9,198,372) have another high-salary QB on their roster. If they don’t, or if that high-salary QB is somebody that they don’t want to put in their Starting lineup, like Derek Carr ($25,000,000) or Russell Wilson ($35,000,000) then hopefully they snatched up Jimmy Garoppolo when they had the chance.
Jimmy G is a very consistent performer. His average in 45 games since 2019 is 19.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points with single season averages of 20.6 in 2019, 13.7 in 2020 when he only played six games, 19.75 in 2021 and 19.9 so far in 2022. He has only scored less than 10.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in five games and more than 30.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in six games. Two of his six 30.0 plus point games have come against Arizona and he’s averaging 35.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in four games against them. He’s also 3-1 on Monday Night Football, which is when this game is being played. He is averaging only 17.65 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in those games, but none have been against Arizona. I think the combination of Monday Night Football plus Arizona equals a good game from Jimmy G so put him in your Starting lineup.
Brian Robinson (WAS – $1,261,227): After a lot of pre-season hype derailed by being shot, Brian Robinson hasn’t done great as the RB1 for Washington. He’s only scored 47.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in six games (7.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game) and averaging just 3.3 yards per carry. I’m not being harsh as I think what he’s done after what happened to him is incredible, but his Dynasty Owners are probably disappointed in his lack of production. He had his best game as a professional on Monday night against the Eagles with 14.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (86 rushing yards and a TD). Now, he gets to face clearly the worst defense against the run in the NFL in the Houston Texans. They are allowing 181.8 yards rushing per game with 156.2 of those yards by RBs. Over the past four weeks, they have allowed over 100 yards rushing three times and Miles Sanders was only 7 yards away in the fourth game. It’s not guaranteed, but likely that Robinson will have his first 100 yard rushing game against Houston. That’s 12.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, including the 2.0 point bonus for 100 yards rushing. Add in a TD because Houston has given up 13 rushing TDs to RBs in nine games and you have 18.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, which is enough to be in your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup this week.
Ben Skowronek (LAR – $891,131): The end of the Cooper Kupp era in Los Angeles means that somebody is going to have to absorb the nearly 11 targets per game he was receiving. Tyler Higbee and Allen Robinson ($15,500,000) are the most likely candidates, with Ben Skowronek not far behind. It happened last week as he was targeted seven times while playing the most snaps of any offensive player (59 snaps). For the season, he has played in 81.3% of the Rams’ offensive snaps, so he’s already been playing. It’s just difficult to be targeted when Matthew Stafford seemingly only had eyes for Kupp. Skowronek is WR69 with 58.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points for the season without a receiving TD (he does have a 17-yard TD run). He should see more throws his way without Kupp around and that’s good as the Rams should throw a lot this week with Stafford back at QB, little running game, and playing against a Saints defense allowing 11.8 receptions and 154.3 receiving yards per game to WRs. I could have also gone with Allen Robinson who is WR59 and has scored only 12.0 more Dynasty Owner fantasy points than Skowronek, but I’ll stick with Skowronek and suggest you get him in your Dynasty Owner Starting lineup. Maybe the end of the Cooper Kupp era means the start of the Ben Skowronek era.
Kylen Granson (IND – $1,046,592): Let’s go through the process that I outlined last week. First, who is playing Arizona? The answer is San Francisco, but even though George Kittle ($15,000,000) is TE18, he has been playing well. It’s just that he missed the first two games of the season with an injury and has yet to catch up. He has 72.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in seven games, so he’s averaging 10.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game. Need to find someone else.
Seattle is also pretty horrible at defending TEs, but a lot of that is from the Week 5 game when Taysom Hill ($10,000,000) put up 39.0 Dynasty Owner fantasy points on them without a reception. They are also on bye, so that won’t work.
Guess I’ll just have to find another method. How about just pretending that I chose Austin Hooper ($6,000,000) before the Thursday Night Football game in which he had 19.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points (4 receptions, 36 receiving yards, 2 TDs)? That’s dishonest, so it’s not happening. With a bunch of choices out the window, I’m going to go with Kylen Granson because Jay was very excited to put him in his Free Agent Auction targets article. His enthusiasm is not without merit as Granson had 9.7 Dynasty Owner fantasy points last week and Matt Ryan ($30,000,000) is back at QB for the Colts and has a long history of throwing to his TEs. In eight games with Ryan at QB, Granson is averaging only 5.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game, but he has done so without a TD. In contrast, fellow TE Mo Alie-Cox ($5,850,000) was not targeted last week despite playing more snaps than Granson (40 snaps for Alie-Cox vs. 30 snaps for Granson) and outside of his two TD game in Week 4, he only has 7 receptions for 64 yards total for the season. Jelani Woods ($1,343,118) has already been ruled out, so I expect a similar game as last week for Granson and a good chance to be in the top 12 TEs and worth having in your Starting lineup.
These Guys Should Be on the Bench (or Practice Squad) This Week
Now it’s time to look at how my Week 10 Bench recommendations worked out (Good, Bad or Just Ok). Most weeks have been a mixed bag with no weeks with zero Good recommendations, but also none with zero Bad recommendations. Let’s see if that was the case in Week 10.
QB: Geno Smith (SEA – $3,500,000) – 24.9 (Bad recommendation)
RB: Raheem Mostert (MIA – $2,125,000) – 20.2 (Bad recommendation)
WR: Michael Pittman (IND – $2,153,212) – 11.3 (Just Ok recommendation)
TE: Robert Tonyan (GB – $3,750,000) – 1.8 (Good recommendation)
Another mixed bag, but this week even has a Just Ok recommendation. It’s just the third week with at least one of those. Michael Pittman had 11.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and would have been Just Ok in your FLEX position. Robert Tonyan had only 1.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, which dropped him from TE11 down to TE16 after Week 10. The end of the Geno Smith era was close, and the Bench recommendation was looking Good. It turned Bad after he threw two TDs in the fourth quarter of the Seahawks’ loss to the Buccaneers in Germany. I was correct about Raheem Mostert splitting carries and receptions with Jeff Wilson ($1,085,000) and Wilson did score more Dynasty Owner fantasy points. However, Wilson had 24.3 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, Mostert had 20.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points and even Alec Ingold ($3,250,000) had 14.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points so picking anyone in the Dolphins backfield would have been a Bad recommendation.
Overall, it’s still close with 43% Good, 48% Bad recommendations and 10% Just Ok. I can even up things with two more Good than Bad recommendations. Hopefully these are the players who can get me that result in Week 11.
Jalen Hurts (PHI – $1,506,292): This would be the spot for Josh Allen if I thought the Josh Allen QB1-QB2 era was going to end. Not predicting that anytime soon, but I was thinking about putting him here if the Bills-Browns game was held in Buffalo. When they announced the game was moving to Detroit, those thoughts went out the window.
With four of the top 12 QBs on bye plus Kyler Murray ($8,914,504) possibly out with an injury and Aaron Rodgers ($33,500,000) having already played on Thursday night, I could dip down to QB16 Marcus Mariota ($9,375,000) and still legitimately say I had listed a “top 12” QB. I won’t do that as you already know since my choice is Jalen Hurts. Trust me, I wish I had an easier choice, but it is what it is.
The reasons for choosing Hurts revolve mostly around the Eagles playing against the Indianapolis Colts and coming off their first loss of the season. They also have one fewer day to prepare since they played on Monday night. Last year after a game against Washington on Tuesday, Hurts “only” had 21.6 Dynasty Owner fantasy points the following week against the Giants. Indianapolis allows 19.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game to QBs and no QB has scored more than the 28.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points they allowed to Taylor Heinicke in Week 8 that led to Frank Reich’s firing. Are the Colts holding Hurts down completely? I don’t really think so. But I do think they have a reasonable chance of keeping his scoring down in the low 20.0 point range, which would make him more of a Bench option, not a top choice for your Starting lineup.
Kareem Hunt (CLE – $6,000,000): It’s dipping down to RB30, but two players above him, Breece Hall ($2,253,694) and Khalil Herbert ($902,677) are on IR, five are on bye and RB29 Eno Benjamin ($849,428) was shockingly released by Arizona and picked up off waivers by Houston. He’s unlikely to have a large role, so I think few Dynasty Owners will use him in their Starting lineup, so it wasn’t fair to have him listed here.
I’m taking Hunt because I think Cleveland might be able to run the ball on Buffalo this week as the Bills have several injured defensive starters. That’ll mean a lot of Nick Chubb ($12,200,000) and less of Hunt. Hunt averages only 9.2 rushing attempts and 34.9 rushing yards per game. Outside of the first game of the season against Carolina, Hunt hasn’t done much despite averaging 11 touches per game. He is averaging only 8.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game since Week 1. In the three games that he has gotten less than 10 touches, he has only scored 11.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points, an average of less than 4.0 points per game. That’s happened in three out of the past four weeks.
If the game turns out like I think it might and Cleveland runs the ball a lot to exploit the Bills’ injuries on defense and keep the ball out of the hands of Josh Allen, then Hunt may see fewer touches and score fewer points than on average. That makes him a player you want on your Dynasty Owner Bench.
Amari Cooper (CLE – $20,000,000): Amari Cooper has some significant home-road splits in his career. The pattern is continuing in 2022. He is averaging only 5.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game on the road, but 20.9 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per game playing at FirstEnergy Stadium. The Browns travel to Detroit to play the Buffalo Bills this Sunday, so even though it’s not a true home game for Buffalo, it’s still a road game for Cooper and the Browns.
In my Week 1 preview article back in 2020, I noted that “Cooper has been a Bench option playing on the road in his career as a Cowboy – averaging only 9.8 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in eight road games in 2019 and 8.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy points per road game in four road games for the Cowboys in 2018”. The dramatic splits era ended in 2020 as he averaged more points on the road (16.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points) than at home (13.5 Dynasty Owner fantasy points), helped immensely by a 33.4 Dynasty Owner fantasy point game on the road at FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland. He was better at home versus on the road for Dallas last year, but the split wasn’t too dramatic (14.6 points per game at home vs. 12.8 points per game on the road).
In 2002, the dramatic splits are back. With my expectation that Cleveland will run more than pass, I think the limited pass catching opportunities for Cooper combined with being on the road will mean a trip back to him being a Bench option when playing on the road.
Juwan Johnson (NO – $895,000): Johnson has been on quite the hot streak to jump up to TE10 in Dynasty Owner. He has 14 receptions, 132 receiving yards and 4 TDs (51.2 Dynasty Owner fantasy points) over his last four games. However, he has yet to have more than 5 receptions or 44 receiving yards in a single game all season, although he had both last week. Those are also his career highs in 31 games over three seasons and he has zero games with double-digit Dynasty Owner fantasy points without a TD. In fact, his highest scoring game without a TD is 8.1 Dynasty Owner fantasy points in Week 6 versus Cincinnati. While all but the top few TEs are TD-dependent, he’s probably the picture in the dictionary (who remembers those) under TD-dependent.
While the Saints’ opponents, the Los Angeles Rams, have played badly this season, it’s not their defense against TEs that needs help as they have allowed only 27 receptions for 314 receiving yards and 2 TDs to TEs all season. George Kittle scored one of the two TDs, while the G.O.A.T. Tom Brady threw the other TD pass to rookie Cade Otton ($1,123,486). Johnson isn’t George Kittle and Saints QB Andy Dalton ($3,000,000) isn’t the G.O.A.T. Enough said, no TD for Johnson so keep him on your Dynasty Owner Bench.
Conclusion
The end of the Cooper Kupp era for 2022 doesn’t mean the end of it forever. He could come back healthy and ready to go in 2023. It took Christian McCaffrey a while to get back to his 2019 form, but he’s back doing it now in 2022, so the same thing could happen to Kupp. His Dynasty Owners are hoping it doesn’t take too long and he spends less time not playing than McCaffrey. Especially since Kupp has a new $26.7 million per year contract extension that goes into effect in Dynasty Owner next year.
I’d be thankful if I could start a new era in which my recommendations are all correct. That’s unlikely, but I’d settle for above .500, or honestly just more Good than Bad recommendations starting this week, continuing through Thanksgiving and the holiday season and all next season.
In addition to these recommendations, we have other articles from both Jay Pounds and Matt Morrison – The Jerk that will help you figure out the best players for your Dynasty Owner team. If you’re looking more forward to the 2023 Dynasty Owner rookie draft than the rest of the 2022 season, then we have another article in the 2023 Rookie Draft series from Nate Christian to help you figure out which rookies will be most helpful to your Dynasty Owner team in the future.
Please listen to the Dynasty Owner podcast with me and Jay as well as the Champions podcast featuring our three Chase for the Ring Champions. This week’s Dynasty Owner podcast episode was recorded on Friday morning and released on Friday afternoon.
Watch the Dynasty Owner Livestream as it happens on Wednesdays as we will answer your trade questions and talk about Dynasty Owner and fantasy football in general. We couldn’t do it this week, but hopefully will do one before Thanksgiving for your viewing pleasure. You can also catch it on the Dynasty Owner YouTube channel after you have your Thanksgiving dinner and watch all three NFL Thanksgiving Day games if you can’t watch us live. Finally, don’t forget to follow Dynasty Owner on Twitter as well. Thanks, and have a great day!
Steven Van Tassell is the Head of Content for Dynasty Owner
Follow us on Twitter: @SteveVT33 and @Dynasty_Owner