If we were all born geniuses we wouldn’t be drafting until this weekend for leagues that we pay into. Most of us are terribly impatient fantasy football players and for whatever reason need an extra week or two to stare at rosters that we can’t do anything with while top end wide receivers and running backs tear their ACLs making awkward cuts. Julian Edelman, Spencer Ware, and Cameron Meredith are all players going anywhere from the early to middle rounds that have had their seasons ended before they even started and thousands of people have these players on their rosters because WE MUST DRAFT IN AUGUST BECAUSE AUGUST IS DRAFT MONTH.  MY FANTASY BASEBALL TEAM SUCKS AND I NEED A ROSTER TO LOOK FORWARD TO. Yeah, I’m the exact same way. Whether it is due to an injury on the roster, a good preseason, or a player is just being overlooked, here are some players that are worth your picks and also some that aren’t worth your time based on recent changes in August.
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Stock Up
Brandin Cooks, Chris Hogan, and James White
Julian Edelman is out for the season and all of these players should be able to pick up the slack that he has left behind. Edelman had 160 targets last season and obviously the Patriots aren’t going to switch to a run first offense overnight. Those targets have to be distributed somehow. Brandin Cooks is going to be a great deep threat and he might see more involvement in the intermediate passing game. I think that he is now worth his ADP of 25. I was down on him earlier in the off season because I just didn’t see him getting enough work to warrant his ADP if he was the 3rd most used target in New England.
Chris Hogan’s ADP has shot up to 140 overall. He won’t be anywhere near an Edelman replacement but he will definitely see enough uptick in his workload to warrant a pretty decent price tag. Hogan has never been a player whose had 500 yards receiving or more than 41 catches but he should be in line for a career year this season. At least, that’s what his good preseason performance tells us. James White’s ADP is sitting in the 130s and I think that will go up after this weekend. White caught 60 balls last year and found the end zone 5 times through the air. White will once again be a steal in PPR leagues due to his involvement in the short to intermediate passing game. He has the trust of Tom Brady, what more could you ask for?
Martavis Bryant is going off of the board at around 50 in most online drafts which is fair, but he slipped through the cracks in both in-person drafts that I took part in this past weekend. People are either just forgetting about him or think that he is too risky because he hasn’t been able to stay out of trouble. In just 11 games in 2015, Bryant had 765 yards and 6 touchdowns. That yardage total would’ve easily put him over the 1,000 yard range at a 16 game pace. He has a ridiculous career 17.3 YPC and he’s only 25 years old. He is widely expected to be cleared to play week 1, but a verdict has yet to be reached on the issue. I say take advantage while your league mates remain weary, he could be a game changer for your season.
Kareem Hunt will now take the starting job that many of us thought that he deserved in the first place. According to FantasyPros, he’s still the 62nd player taken off of the board. In my recent rankings update, I have him at 40th overall, so that should tell you where I stand on him. He’s a talented back in an almost certain bell cow role as long as he performs well. Unless you think C.J. Spiller is going to take that job from him. Haha, good one.
Kevin White
Unfortunately, Cameron Meredith’s season is over. Markus Wheaton has yet to see the field since having surgery on a broken finger and rumor has it that Victor Cruz probably isn’t going to make the 53-man roster. Has Kevin White whatsoever proven that he can be a good NFL receiver? Nope. But, with an ADP of 175 at this time (which is sure to come up a lot), I think he’s worth a shot as your 4th or 5th rostered wide receiver. Sure, he hasn’t been able to get open in the preseason, but he has speed and it’s a learning curve for somebody that hasn’t been on the field a lot as a pro. It’s the laziest excuse in the book but Chicago REALLY has nobody else to throw to that’s worth a damn.
Stock Down
Andrew Luck and T.Y. Hilton
Who knows when this dynamic duo will be able to make 2017 magic at this point. Reporters that cover the Colts are starting to express more and more doubt that Andrew Luck will see the field in week one and that sucks the soul out of T.Y. Hilton’s value for the time being. I’m holding out hope that Luck will be on the field by the time late September or early October rolls around, but there is even talk of Luck not playing at all this season because the Colts’ roster is in such shambles. Do I buy it? No. But it doesn’t exactly instill confidence in either of these two. I don’t think that T.Y.’s value is completely murdered because the targets should be there, but I’m not touching him until the 4th round.
Eddie Lacy
It looks like Thomas Rawls should be ready to go for week one. Here’s more bad news, for Lacy’s fantasy value, Pete Carroll says that Rawls and Lacy are both number 1 backs heading into the season. Lacy is a guy who needs volume to be fantasy relevant so this certainly doesn’t bode well for him. Running back by committee situations are a soul crushing thing and I think I’d rather take on Thomas Rawls a round or 2 later ADP-wise, based on what I believe to be a higher ceiling.
Legarrette Blount
Legarrette Blount has been very ineffective in the preseason so far. The Eagles are trying to bust him out to the outside and have him run the ball from shotgun, but that is just not his style. Taking a player at 73, which is his current ADP, doesn’t seem worth it for a player that is rumored to be on the roster chopping block. More realistically, Wendell Smallwood is rumored to be in the running for the starting job, likely pushing Blount strictly to a goal line back. Nothing makes me think Blount would be able to get double digit goal line touchdowns in this Eagles offense.
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