Luke Wilson answers your fantasy football questions, 'overreaction Monday: Part II' edition. Discussing Tyler Warren's revised (revising?) outlook, weighing two buzz name heavyweights against each other in a league where TEs are optional, comparing two other tight ends enduring nightmarish starts to their sophomore seasons, revisiting a trade submitted to us just last week with fresh eyes, and more.
Question 1
Thanks for your help over the years. I've been in a twelve-team league since 1993. (Yes - when we needed to check the Monday sports page box scores for league scoring). Wondering why you're so much lower on Tyler Warren compared to other TEs ROS. What's the reasoning?
Chuck Loomis (Roseville, CA)
That's a great question, Chuck. There's two main reasons for Warren hanging back a few spots from where rankings had him as recently as August.
The first reason is that he's been leapfrogged by hot starts from guys in splashier passing offenses. The big numbers from Dalton Kincaid, Isaiah Likely and elder statesman Travis Kelce are very difficult to ignore — they won't maintain their current paces, but they all have access to a lot of higher value targets and/or superstar quarterback play. For a position where we might not see a 1,000-yard receiver were Trey McBride to struggle or miss time, that moves the needle in a hurry. George Kittle is also trending back toward being a weekly menace well ahead of where a lot of people (such as myself, who back in the spring left him off of his Experts Rankings submission entirely — whoops). Warren hasn't so much as fallen back as other guys have stepped to the fore.
But I for one was and remain a bit squeamish on Warren relative to consensus. Unlike a lot of the guys just mentioned, Warren isn't a guy that is going to make most of his hay running a full route tree well away from the line of scrimmage; he is going to get his more on volume and some short touchdowns, be they receptions or the occasional rushing one. That makes him a bit more like a Travis Kelce, who it seems like is always leaking out behind the pass rush or off of a distracted linebacker's hip into the middle of the field for layup throws. Pairing that with a master improvisor like Mahomes? Sweet, sweet music.
Daniel Jones is not Patrick Mahomes. When Indianapolis bolted out to their 7-1 start last year, Jones was lapping the entire league in the percentage of his throws that were going to first reads — if you're into the 'system QB' narrative, then Jones fit it to a tee. And that was advantageous for Warren, because the system itself was in a good place: Michael Pittman was still around, Josh Downs was in and out of the lineup — and most of all, Alec Pierce was a legitimate threat that kept defensive backs in their backpedal a heartbeat or two longer.
Looked at through this lens, things would seem to have now turned against Warren: The consummate intermediate operator in Pittman is gone, and obviously there's no telling what Indianapolis gets from Pierce. Replacing their roles in the offense are a healthy and involved Josh Downs and mercenary Keenan Allen — good players, but ones that thrive on throws more like the ones Warren tends to see. I fear that Sunday night against the Chiefs was already a preview of what we can expect to see a lot of for Warren in the near term: Leak-outs and chip and releases into the flat where a safety is already en route to torpedo him nearly in half before the ball even gets there.
Warren is still a starting TE even by our adjusted projections, but he's a lot easier to like in full PPR formats. He could have more than a few 'TD or bust' types of box scores in his near future.
Question 2
Where would you rank Jacobs/Lloyd rest of season if they were one running back? I noticed Jacobs creeping up the rankings. Do you feel that he will be back soon (soon being around week 5). Do you believe Jacobs is a top 10 RB once he returns?
David Keeton (Arlington, TN)
Uh-oh, we've fixated ourselves on this Jacobs vs. Tuten dilemma (Mr. Keeton was laboring under a very similar quandary in last week's 'bag). But with the season still in its infancy and the whole of us posed with the challenge of making ROS judgment calls based on this dangerously small sample size, revisiting does make sense.
This won't be a particularly satisfactory answer, but it's an honest one: I can't effectively rank Jacobs-Lloyd ROS (rest of season) right now; nobody can, hence the general unease over being invested in these players/this backfield. Without turning this into a procedural blog on pre-litigation and deferment, suffice it to say that Jacobs' off-field problems are ongoing and very fluid. But the broad strokes of them at present are that he's very likely going to serve a suspension even once he comes off of the Commissioner's Exempt List, so we've already slid pretty squarely into 'if everything breaks just right from today on, we might see him for most of November' territory.
Now obviously the appeal here is that once Jacobs is able to take the field, he has the potential to flip your matchup projections from that point forward. That's definitely not nothing. But the stars seem to be turning in Tuten's favor: The Chris Rodriguez boogeyman isn't quite dead and buried, but Tuten's running away from Rodriguez in the touch distribution already and could continue to do so. While Tuten's upcoming stretch of opposition is thick with fair-to-imposing run defenses, his schedule coming out of Jacksonville's Week 7 bye looks very inviting: Home for a solid but leaky Colts' front, at a beatable Baltimore and then suddenly mortally wounded Giants, and Tennessee twice. Upcoming dates with Cincinnati, Philadelphia and Houston are unfortunate, but Tuten will certainly outproduce Jacobs over that stretch.
I think the apple's turning on this one: I cautioned against it last week, but you now have FI's blessing to go break up the possible wedding between Tuten and his waffling owner. And I'd be quick about it, before the Jacobs' coverage shifts from 'when will he be off the exempt list?' to 'Will this suspension be 4 games or longer?'
Note: After last week's fumble, Marshawn Lloyd's outlook is too gloomy to really even factor in here, hence my not really mentioning him prior to now.
Question 3
We play WR/TE combo. Dalton Kincaid is on our waiver wire. Would you drop Tucker Kraft for Kincaid?
Patrick LaMendola (Penfield, NY)
Full disclosure: The very first player I plugged into my Blackout contest submission this week was Kraft. We still have every reason to believe he is crucial to the success of this offense, which is implied by his lack of involvement coinciding with the last six-plus quarters of Packers football being generally disastrous. Atlanta has already given up 3 TDs to tight ends, they have been much stingier against the run, Green Bay obviously has major issues at running back — we are all system go for pass funnel game script.
But if this truly comes down to Kincaid vs. Kraft then... well, sheesh no wonder you phoned a friend. Kraft was the buzzier breakout candidate coming into 2026, but as I pointed out in an advanced data broad spectrum write-up over the summer, Kincaid most certainly was not lacking for breakout indicators. With D.J. Moore and Christian Watson even filling similar roles to start, maybe this one just comes down to which of those two receivers plays more full, healthy games the rest of the way. That's as good as a way to drive some daylight between these two as any.
Without giving away too much, I can confirm our official ROS outlook for both favors the former Ute. But there are some depth receivers I'd kick out of the boat to keep them both around, even in a league like this one.
Question 4
I picked up Gadsden because Loveland is doing terrible and now has no Caleb this week. Should I start Gadsden? It feels like the lesser of two terrible options.
Edward Shin (Tustin, CA)
Talk about a loaded question. If I tell you to stick with the guy we were excited about all summer long over the guy who was No. 3 on his own team's depth chart less than a week ago and it's wrong, how will I ever be able to look you in the face again Edward?
I am sticking with Loveland here, and not just because I'm trying to play it safe and hide behind the ADP in case things go bad (okay, maybe I am doing that just a little). In fact, I am even willing to go so far as to say that Keenum might not be that big of a negative for Loveland's prospects on Monday.
Hear me out: 38 years young and three years removed from his last regular season appearance, last year Case Keenum followed Ben Johnson to Chicago to serve in a sort of player-coach hybrid role, like Cooper Kupp has inhabited in Seattle (perhaps because he needed one more year of NFL service time to qualify for free health care for life, perhaps because he really still has the proverbial 'fire in the belly', who's to say). With Williams already the path forward as the starter and Bagent freshly signed to one of the higher-paying backup quarterback contracts in the league, it was clear Keenum's contributions would come in helping expedite the younger quarterbacks' assimilation into a fully pro-style offense.
Now 38, Keenum already possessed one of the weakest arms in the league five years ago. He is not going to be scaring Quinyon Mitchell, nor probably Cooper DeJean. But Chicago wouldn't let him on the field if they didn't think he could at least keep the offense on schedule, and if deep balls are mostly out, then for Chicago to succeed it will be on the strength of three step drops where Keenum's back foot hits the turf and that ball is gone. Tight ends are already an immobile quarterback's best friend; there's a possibility Loveland is Keenum's 'BFF' by the time Week 3 is in the books.
I won't fault you if you can't do it; one target in two games is one target in two games. But I'm taking the entire contents of last year's tsunami bowl against a genuinely terrifying Vikings' defense, wadding it up and tossing it in the wastebasket — bad data is bad. Gadsden is certainly interesting, and Buffalo's defense has been walked through in each of the first two weeks of the season. With the Chargers on life support and in desperate need of somebody to just step up and do something, that someone could absolutely be Gadsden. But I trust the player and the scheme in Chicago more, even with Old Man Keenum trying to survive four quarters of Jalen Carter & Co.
Question 5
Hey guys. Trade scenario here: I'm in a 10 team, 2 QB, PPR auction league. Should I try to trade a QB for a WR? I ended up with 4 (Mahomes, Nix, Darnold, Brissett) in a league where all starters are rostered. Another team only has Bryce Young, Tua and Bagent and is desperate. We can only start 3 WR/TE per week, and my WRs (D. Smith, P. Washington, Waddle, Metcalf, M. Wilson) are serviceable but maybe not spectacular. Would a Brissett or Darnold for his Zay Flowers or Drake London be worthwhile? I don't even know if he would do it, but I suspect he would. Or should I hold on to all of my QB's for now considering the way they have been getting injured lately? Thanks.
Bryce Erickson (Dallas, TX)
Howdy neighbor! So even in a 2-QB format like this one, the potential VORP (value over replacement player) gain going up from a Robin type of WR to a bonafide Batman cannot be understated, particularly in full PPR. You are obviously well provisioned at QB, he is going to be at a weekly disadvantage until he gets a tourniquet on this thing (and that's assuming this early Bryce Young production is for real; I'm not coronating him yet).
But this is a true 'blood in the streets' moment, and if I'm you I'm not leaving any meat on this bone. In one of our house superflex dynasty league where I'm trying to knock down some real bad boys, one of them entered the season stocked to the gills at quarterback too: Four guys who all had legitimate cases to finish in the upper echelons of the position. Two weeks in and three of them (Kyler Murray, Jayden Daniels and now Jaxson Dart) have already been knocked out of games — his season now hinges on Brock Purdy remaining upright and productive, something he (and the rest of the 49ers while we're at it, but that's a different Mailbag) has struggled with.
Press down hard on the fear center in this guy's brain and remind him if Bryce gets hurt or just turns back into a pumpkin, three months of misery and a year of brisk ribbing lie ahead. Pry his hand open, take Drake London out of it and replace him with Brissett. Flowers is an acceptable consolation prize if he can't bring himself to bleed that hard, but Flowers' first half against Indy was rumored to be a byproduct of letting Cam Bynum wear the green dot and bungling the defensive playcalls — like, a lot. Let's go try and land a guy in London who, if Penix's knees hold together, can make you a bully the rest of the way.
Of course, decisions like these can be tricky. To quote Jeffrey Lebowski, "Lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what have yous." Sometimes these things are best hashed out over an adult beverage or two, and I can throw a rock into Dallas from my alley. Just saying.
