Luke Wilson answers your fantasy football questions. Discussing the case for our bullishness on a prominent Bill, sifting through fringe roster holds after a week's worth of results (and injuries), whether the time is now to swing big on Bhayshul Tuten, and much more.
But first, an exercise in philosophy that exists in both fantasy and real-world football alike.
Question 1
Just wondering how people drafted to avoid or maybe not care about the week 14 bye? Personally, I avoided it if I could. If you lose that week, it will cost you your league championship. I have plenty of shares of Pickens, Javonte, and M. Wilson but I limited it or opted for other, similar guys. Why does Roger Goodell and the NFL seem not to care about fantasy football?
David Kennedy (Steamburg, NY)
Starting with the last part first: Because it isn't profitable. Over its history, conventional fantasy football grew in popularity at the sort of snail's pace that would make present day venture capitalists weep all over their bespoke, designer hoodies. And part of the reason was kind of an obvious one: How do you monetize the thing? Sure, some platforms charged nominal (or sometimes not so nominal — looking at you, CBSSports) fees directly to commissioners, but that's only 'keep the lights on' money, big picture, and how do you scale when so many competing services will host leagues for free?
This is why both fantasy football apps and the NFL alike have cozied up to sports betting opportunities at warp speed, relative to the historical arc of fantasy football itself: There's just much, much more money to be made. On to the meat of your submission.
I'll answer your philosophical question with one of my own. The scene: Texans' season opener, Buffalo 36, Houston 31. Just 16 seconds remained on the clock, and Houston had the ball at Buffalo's 18-yard line. C.J. Stroud takes the snap out of the gun, surveys the field, but fails to sense big Greg Rousseau peeling around the right tackle's outside shoulder. Rousseau swats down on Stroud's throwing hand just as he tries to step up in the pocket: Football on the ground, Buffalo recovers, ballgame. The resultant headline: C.J. Stroud loses another big game.
But did he really? Stroud had been excellent to that point in the game: 26 for 38, 274 yards, 2 touchdowns, and several stick throws to turn 3rd downs into fresh sets. So was the game lost because he fumbled the ball, or because big Trent Brown was vaporized by Rousseau's speed rush in the first place? How about on the previous drive, when Josh Allen threw one of the most heinous meatball subs you will ever see straight into the hands of Houston's (generally excellent) Kamari Lassiter — who simply dropped it, single-handedly allowing Buffalo the chance to retake the lead in the first place? When it's that close, there's always a dozen plays or moments you could point to as the difference in the game.
The same really is true in fantasy, whether your league is playing its regular season finale (like all mine do) in fateful Week 14 or the first round of its playoffs. If you head into Week 14 needing to win to get in, that means you're probably 7-6, or 8-5 at absolute best. If you're hurt by bye weeks to key players at that point, stands to reason you had a bye week advantage in at least a few of those previous defeats; what happened then? If Week 14 is the opening round of your league's playoffs, good chance a couple of teams earned a first-round bye — why weren't you one of them?
The challenge posed by late season byes can definitely be irritating, but it is also one that can almost always be mitigated by winning, winning, winning. If you molly wop the field over the first 13 weeks, you're going to be pretty well inoculated from players idled in December. Better to aspire to domination than to plan for Week 14 to be a must win affair.
Question 2
Hi guys. You've been a great service, thank you so much! You guided me to Frank Gore in 2006, Arian Foster in 2011 — so what do you guys see in James Cook to have ranked him 3rd in most formats?
Rich Hornstein (Huntington Beach, CA)
What, a rushing title doesn't count for something?
Humor aside, Cook's appeal is pretty straightforward: Running as close to unopposed as any tailback this side of Jonathan Taylor, in one of the two or three offenses where the quarterback really does force defenses to have a plan for him as a runner every single week. He probably doesn't need the help as much, but Derrick Henry gets a similar boon from his quarterback. As one of two legitimate headaches for opposing front sevens (or really front 6-and-a-halves, as defenses spend more and more time with 5-plus DBs on the field) every time he touches the ball, life is just plain easier for guys like Cook, Henry — and hopefully, if the Malik Willis gambit pans out, Devon Achane.
And with a major shakeup on the sideline, there's also a chance for Cook's involvement as a receiver to rebound from its recently suppressed levels. Coming out of Georgia, Cook was billed as a guy who could certainly hold his own in the chip-and-release and screen game; it was generally agreed that 50 or so receptions a season was a reasonable projection, once/if he settled in as the feature back. But the recent iterations of the Bills have been so prolific on the ground that throwing it to Cook just hasn't been necessary — why add the risk when he reliably gains plenty of yards before contact on rushing attempts?
The season opener in Houston was mildly encouraging for Cook's safety valve involvement: 17 total 'opportunities' (carries plus targets), with 4 of them being through the air. The good news: Since 2023, Cook had only seen 4-plus targets in 7 regular season games. The bad news: Five of them also saw Cook log 13 or fewer carries, like he did in Houston. Was Cook's target share uptick driven by an uptempo game, or will we see him with the higher weekly reception floor that could push him toward his best-ever positional finish? Hopefully tonight's home opener against Detroit tells us more.
Question 3
Let's talk low draft pick potential. I drafted RB Jordan Mason, RB Jonah Coleman and WR Ja'Kobi Lane. It's a 10 team league, standard scoring. Your thoughts on who might bust out as the "missing piece" to a title?
Jeff Powers (Coral Springs, FL)
Fun first week for this trio! After narrowly missing out on a touchdown in his NFL debut, rookie Ja'Kobi Lane's day went from ho hum to 'Oh, no' when he departed with a wrist injury that turned out to be the dreaded fracture, putting him next to De'Zhaun Stribling on the 'welp, that was quick' shuttle bus back to waiver wires far and wide.
Jordan Mason has since joined him on short term IR with a bone break of his own, leaving Jonah Coleman running pretty darned unopposed here. But I'm going to eschew the rookie fever and stick with the veteran: Minnesota showed that they are good enough to win even with Carson Wentz at quarterback for most of last week's comeback thriller, and we obviously didn't see near enough of Kyler Murray in this offense to know what that's going to look like — assuming that he winds up taking back over as soon as he's cleared to play. But whichever of Minnesota's former franchise quarterbacks wind up starting over the coming weeks, a tremendous enthusiasm for pass volume from HC/play caller Kevin O'Connell is not expected; the 2023 Kirk Cousins iteration of this offense is deep in the garage with the car cover on.
Minnesota's going to need to run the football to survive, and with only the increasingly rickety Aaron Jones in his way and proximity to a true rushing threat quarterback to help create space between the tackles, Mason being a set-and-forget kind of guy for a stretch of this season wouldn't surprise me in the least. He's good, and the offense could be desperately awaiting his return before we know it.
Question 4
With AJ Brown on IR, I can replace him with DJ Moore in my starting lineup, so that's good. But I have no more bench WRs: Should I look to replace him with Romeo Doubs, DeMario "Pop" Douglas or Kyle Williams? Or fill the spot with another RB "lottery ticket", i.e. Ray Davis, Justice Hill, Wright/Gordon from Miami?
Richard Micheli (Washington, DC)
Kind of a tricky one, as those are generally running backs you'd like to see rostered outside of pretty shallow leagues (10 teamers and 12 teamers with especially few bench spots). But your question strongly suggests you've only got three healthy receivers rostered and quite possibly only two — that's a fairly extreme roster composition. Considering you're probably all set on running backs, probably the wideout is the way to go here.
Doesn't get much uglier than Romeo Doubs' Patriots debut. He garnered only three targets even with Brown out for most of the contest, he had a very costly drop late in the game, and his postgame interview sure came off as a pout job. Not a great way to endear yourself to the Boston crowd. But I think he's pretty clearly the guy to go after here: Pop Douglas is a great role player, but if he were meant for a feature role then New England probably doesn't throw so many draft picks and contracts at other receivers the last couple of years. And Kyle Williams is a kick returner first, offense contributor a distant second for the time being, let him take up space on somebody else's bench.
Romeo Doubs got the contract he did (4-yr/$68m) for two reasons: One, because Alec Pierce and Rashid Shaheed quickly re-signed with their respective teams, and two, as insurance in case the handshake deal the Patriots maybe, possibly, definitely had in place with Philadelphia on Brown fell through. He's absolutely the guy that slides into what was to be Brown's role, and there's even a possibility this has a bit of an 'addition by subtraction' effect in the short-term: New England keeping both Brown and Doubs happy (remember, Doubs was benched for a game in 2024 over his dissatisfaction with his role in the Green Bay offense) was going to be a potential challenge for Josh McDaniels, now that's out of the air and out of their hair for a while. Go get Doubs, he's the perfect handcuff for your A.J. Brown problem.
Question 5
Trade question: I have (Marshawn) Lloyd and (Josh) Jacobs. I see Jacobs returning and being a strong RB2 but I'm devoting two roster spots to the Packers backfield until that happens. I have an offer to trade the two Packer RBs for Tuten. I think Tuten is slightly better than Lloyd at the moment, but if Tuten shares time, I’m not sure he’s better than Jacobs upon his return. Where would you rank Jacobs and Tuten ROS? Would you make this trade?
David Keeton (Arlington, TN)
This may come as a surprise, but I wouldn't. And it sounds like the Tuten owner in your league and I are on the same page as to why.
Tuten is a very exciting young player in an incredibly exciting, young offense; there's a lot of 'mystery box' appeal with a player like this, 'who knows what he could be' type thinking. It's the reason I took him at full MSRP in this year's FI Invitational, despite some latent reservations about how lofty his ceiling really is over the season's first half. But simply put, Tuten has a real touchdown problem: Yes, Jacksonville brought in the squattier Chris Rodriguez, but they also have a quarterback that is liable to take it himself a half dozen times, as well as the personnel to be one of the league leaders in passing touchdowns, both overall and inside the red zone. This isn't quite the TreVeyon vs. Rhamondre conundrum, but it's a cousin.
For all intents and purposes, Josh Jacobs already is what Tuten could hope to be this year: He scores touchdowns at an elite clip, he suffers no committee mates, and he catches the football just as much as Tuten can realistically hope to do in 2026. His legal woes threw a good hard scare into the fantasy world at the exact wrong time in the calendar, but those now look to be moving toward a definitive resolution. Hang on to what you've got and ride out whatever absence Jacobs still has to serve out — I suspect he'll be running like a man eager to make his off the field misdeeds a distant memory soon enough.
Question 6
Hi Luke. Should I drop Malik Davis for Zach Charbonnet (what's his outlook?) and/or Shakir for Deebo? Thanks!
MICHAEL HAMER (Springfield, PA)
Well Malik Davis' season is now over, but I would have dumped him for Charbonnet in the blink of an eye even before his season ended before it began.
Charbonnet's outlook is still shrouded in mystery. Mike Macdonald has been steadfastly optimistic-but-noncommittal, only willing to assure us that 'Charbs' has been 'ahead of schedule' (whatever that means) and his timetable to return is 'aggressive' (thanks Mike). There's a variety of reasons he's being this cagey (not wanting to pressure the guy to risk re-injury in a contract year; not wanting to say a date that then needs to be pushed back for some reason; not wanting to make it seem like the guys that are healthy can't hack it), but the general tone leaves us to assume that if he remains on the shelf past his earliest PUP list return date of Week 5, it won't be by much.
Let's be conservative and say Halloween. Seattle hosts Chicago on Monday, November 2nd, so that could be a fitting return spot. That would give him three games to get his sea legs back under him before Seattle's Week 11 bye, and then he's presumably all systems go for the stretch run (and fantasy playoffs) as the team's primary third down back and quite possibly preferred goal line option as well. This passes muster for me as plausible — I know my Price skepticism hasn't been especially well-received, but unless Price absolutely shoots the lights out I don't buy that he can box a healthy Charbonnet out of this offense. Kenneth Walker couldn't and look what he just did to Denver.
The second part is a really tricky one: From a fantasy perspective, Shakir and Deebo aren't all that different. Neither are full-time players nor conventional route tree practitioners, but when they're on the field they see usage at an extremely high rate that can offset their being on the sideline in a lot of personnel packages. 'Can' being the operative word; they will of course both throw some goose egg grenades in your lap.
Feel especially free to go with your gut if it's in disagreement here, but I'm going to say go Deebo. Shakir's role is more stable and he's better at staying out of the blue tent, but he just doesn't offer the same rate of splash plays that Samuel is capable of, back in his more familiar version of a red and gold jersey. But really it's about the rushing game involvement: After signing back with his old team, Kyle Shanahan came right out and confirmed that Deebo's going to be involved in the run game, and he didn't want to hear any whining about it this time around. He only got the one rush attempt against the Rams, but more are coming. Not for nothing, Deebo also returned two kicks for 74 yards last Thursday. He ain't washed just yet, folks.
Question 7
I'm in a 12 Team PPR League. Grabbed Jonathan Taylor in Round 1 and King Henry in Round 2. Then there was a massive run on RBs, I refused to overdraft RBs that I skipped out on entirely, instead snagging Woody Marks and Chris Rodriguez in the middle rounds. Does it make sense for me to get a handcuff for Taylor or King Henry at the expense of dropping somebody like Emmett Johnson, Jaylen Reed or even Rodriguez? Honestly, I think Emmett Johnson would be a better starter if KW3 got hurt than Justice Hill if King Henry was injured. And I'm not even sure who the right handcuff is for Jonathan Taylor.
Andrew Napoli (Woodbridge, VA)
It sounds like you know you're right here, but allow me to hammer the nail all the way into the board for you: There are no handcuffs for Jonathan Taylors and Derrick Henrys, they don't exist. Not anymore, at least.
In a league where starting running backs not even considered to be on committees now regularly, typically play no more than 80 percent of their team's total offensive snaps and often quite a bit less than that, Jonathan Taylor now stands alone at the mountaintop of true, honest to goodness every down back status. Taylor was on the field for over 87 percent of Indy's plays nine times last year. He played all but one snap of the first half of last week's season opener. By modern standards, he is a true freakazoid. Derrick Henry reliably gets stronger and more dangerous the more carries he receives, consistently draining the fight from the opposition as the game draws on. Their offenses aren't designed around the running back position, they're built around these guys specifically. If they go down, the very composition of the offense immediately changes.
So yes, I agree with you: You can't 'handcuff' what those guys are and do for their respective teams. So, the question of whether 'tis wiser to handcuff your own running backs or somebody else's comes to bear, and there are advocates for both approaches. What good is Emmett Johnson going to do you if rostering him means you have to watch somebody else snatch up Seth McGowan or DJ Giddens (I also don't know who the guy would be, but I don't think Indy does either) via superior waiver priority if Taylor hits the shelf? But oh, the possibilities if Walker instead misses time and you're able to plug Johnson into your flex slot for a few weeks. The correct answer, sadly, remains unknowable.
But I'd sit tight with Johnson and Rodriguez for the time being. They're in good offenses, and both have very plausible paths to relevance. Justice Hill and DJ Giddens, less so.
