Weekly Hail Mary: Week 10
Welcome to Hail Mary Football’s raison d’etre, the Weekly Hail Mary. If you’re desperate, we’re giving you a prayer... a prayer at winning your fantasy matchup, that is!
Each week of the fantasy football regular season, HMF will provide you with at least one “Hail Mary” at QB, RB, WR, and TE - a guy who is not generally regarded as a starter for the week, but who has the potential to pay off big. Think of it as a dart throw column. These are the guys you look to when you’re in dire straits and have nowhere else to turn. They are the lottery tickets that are not necessarily likely to hit, but if they do, you’ll be thrilled, as you can likely grab them for free off your waiver wire. We only focus on players who are available in at least two-thirds of Yahoo! leagues. This year, we’re offering a NEW AND IMPROVED format where we are recommending no more than four potential streamers (and typically only three) at each position. Our goal is a 50% hit rate for the year, which is really pretty darn good when you think about it, since we’re only choosing from the dregs.
Our determination of hits and misses is objective. We use the following criteria to determine whether a player is a “hit”:
Quarterbacks - Finish in the top 12 among quarterbacks or score at least 18.5 fantasy points, which was the average weekly output for the 12th-best scoring QB last season. We use 12th-best as the cutoff because that is what constitutes being starter-worthy in 12-team leagues.
Running Backs - Finish in the Top 36 among running backs, since most leagues start two running backs and a flex; or put up 8.1 fantasy points, which was the average weekly output for the 36th-best scoring RB last season.
Wide Receivers - Finish in the Top 36 among wide receivers, since most leagues start 3 WRs or 2 WR and a flex; or put up 11.4 fantasy points, which would have been the average weekly output for the 36th-best scoring WR last season.
Tight Ends - Finish in the Top 12 among tight ends, or put up 9.0 fantasy points, which would have been the average weekly output for the 12th-best TE last season. Like with quarterbacks, we use 12th-best as the cutoff because that is what constitutes being starter-worthy in 12-team leagues.
We hit on 2 of 7 recommended plays last week, for a 29% success rate. I suspect our rate would have been higher, had Taysom Hill and Tua Tagovailoa been given the starts in their respective matchups:
Quarterback (18.5 points minimum)
Tyrod Taylor - MISS - Tyrod’s return to the lineup was nothing short of brutal. He tossed 3 picks and didn’t have a single touchdown, and added next to nothing with his legs. Just a really, really disappointing day for Taylor in what projected as a soft matchup.
Taysom Hill - PUSH - We updated our recommendations on 11/5 to reflect that Sean Payton had named Trevor Siemian the starter for the game, and that we were therefore removing Hill from our recommended plays.
Tua Tagovailoa - PUSH - We updated our recommendation on Sunday at 11:30 to reflect the news that Tua was not going to start in Week 9 due to his finger injury, and advised that we were removing him from our list of recommended streamers.
Running Back (8.1)
Adrian Peterson - HIT - It definitely wasn’t pretty, as AD has only 21 yards rushing and looked every bit his age, but he saved his day with a garbage time touchdown and had 9.6 fantasy points.
Carlos Hyde - MISS - 21 carries for 67 yards, as well as 1 catch for 6 yards. The volume was there; the production wasn’t. He finished the day with 7.3 fantasy points.
Boston Scott - MISS - 10 carries for 40 yards. You can’t complain when a waiver wire guy is getting double digit touches, but you’d certainly like to see some of them come through the air. Scott finished with only 4.0 measly fantasy points in this one.
Wide Receiver (11.4)
Rashod Bateman - MISS - But barely. Bateman was targeted 8 times on Sunday, which shows that our process was good. He finished the day with 5 grabs for 52 yards and 10.2 fantasy points. He didn’t kill you, but he didn’t quite measure up to the lofty standards we’ve set.
Van Jefferson - MISS - Matt Stafford was really bad in this game, which was surprising given how bad the Titans’ secondary has been this year (most fantasy friendly to opposing wide receivers). The process was good, as Jefferson did wind up seeing 7 targets, but the results were lacking as he wound up with only 3 catches for 41 yards.
Will Fuller - PUSH - We noted that our recommendation was to play him only if he was removed from IR prior to the game. He wasn’t.
Tight End (9.0)
Tyler Conklin - HIT - Conklin had a fairly weak stat line (5 for 45), but at tight end that’s actually enough to be a TE1 for the week, as he finished with 9.5 fantasy points.
Moving onto Week 10… well, first, a note on Week 10. Week 10 is really tough for streamers. Pretty brutal, actually. But that’s why you turn to us, right? So no excuses here. We’re going to strive for our standard goal of a 50% hit rate, albeit with some trepidation. Here are our recommended Hail Marys for Week 10:
Quarterbacks
Taylor Heinicke, Washington Football Team (9% rostered). Or whomever is starting for Washington. You really have to hold your nose to play a Washington signal-caller, especially Heinicke, but hey, they’re playing the Bucs, and you have to throw if you want to move the ball on Tampa.
That’s it. That’s all I’ve got for this recommendation.
Ben Roethlisberger, Steelers (27%). I don’t really feel all that confident in Big Ben, and I feel that this is probably more of a “Najee Harris” game than a “Ben Roethlisberger” game, but the matchup against Detroit is soft either way. A lot of the QBs I’d typically recommend streaming are on bye this week, so we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel even more than usual here. For Roethlisberger to have a big day, he’s probably going to need to do it on the strength of passing touchdowns rather than yardage, because the Steelers are likely to get up big early on the hapless Lions.
Running Backs
Jeff Wilson, Jr., 49ers (32%). The matchup against the Rams isn’t ideal, but he’s finally been activated and may well split lead back duties with Elijah Mitchell, or at the very least siphon goal-line work from him.
Devonta Freeman, Ravens (19%). Freeman has quietly emerged as the Ravens’ lead runner over the past few weeks. He has double digit fantasy points in each of his past three games, and also has a touchdown in each. (Another way of looking at it is that his fantasy production has been driven entirely by touchdowns… but again, this is a tough week.) Freeman is likely to make it four straight weeks with a tuddy on Thursday Night Football against the Dolphins.
Wide Receivers
Will Fuller, Dolphins (26%). LIke the last two weeks, our recommendation is contingent upon him coming off IR. But if he is finally activated this week, he should immediately slot into your starting lineup. He’s the only guy with weekly top 10 upside that is available on waivers in most leagues. And with DeVante Parker on IR, the Dolphins need him. Badly.
Elijah Moore, Jets (27%). This is likely chasing last week’s stats, but after his performance against the Colts, he’s earned your attention. Rookies routinely get better as the season progresses, and Moore had his coming out party last Thursday Night with 7 grabs for 84 yards and 2 touchdowns. He finally looked like the guy we had been reading about in the preseason.
DeSean Jackson, Raiders (4%). Jackson was granted his release following the NFL’s trade deadline, and quickly signed with the Raiders following Vegas’ release of Henry Ruggs. That suggests to me that Jackson will fill the Ruggs’ role as the deep threat on this roster, and that should mesh well with Derek Carr’s big arm in what is likely to be a high-scoring affair with the Chiefs on Sunday Night Football. My only concern is that he may be on a pitch count if he doesn’t know the full playbook, but I suspect the Raiders are going to have several plays drawn up for him to try to get him freed up deep down the field.
Tight Ends
Dan Arnold, Jaguars (27%). Come on, folks. Get with the program on Dan Arnold. Double digit fantasy points in 3 of his past 4, with at least 5 targets in each of those games. Volume is king in fantasy, and Arnold is one of the few tight ends seeing volume. On Sunday, he gets his softest matchup of the season since joining the Jaguars, as the Colts are bottom-10 in the NFL against opposing tight ends.
Tyler Conklin, Vikings (38%). This one is a bit of a cheat since he doesn’t *quite* qualify due to his ownership, but it’s close enough that I thought I’d throw his name out there so you can check and see if he’s available in your league. He has a matchup against the Chargers in Week 10, who are bottom-3 in the NFL in allowing fantasy points to opposing tight ends. Conklin and Arnold are quickly becoming HMF poster boys this season.