Can you see it? That’s your fantasy football league’s playoff picture coming into view. Hopefully you’re reading this because you’re making your playoff push or fighting for a high seed and want to keep winning. Most league’s regular season ends week 13 or 14, so we are in the crucial weeks of the season that can shape the playoff landscape in your league. It’s make or break time and it is extremely important to find productive players to put in your flex spots. That is exactly why I write this column, to help you make these tough decisions and win your weeks!
As you know, every Thursday here on Razzball, I will be posting the weeks “Sexy Flexies” to give you a couple of players to consider starting in your flex spot. The objective isn’t to point out the obvious guys you’re starting in your RB or WR slots, but to take a look at a couple of players who are a bit more under the radar. These will likely be guys that you won’t start every week but will be good rotational pieces in the flex spot of your lineup based on matchup and opportunity.
What I do here is look at the matchups and opportunities and highlight for you a couple of guys who I believe will perform in the situation they are in for the given week. For this column, we will be looking at players who are ranked 60th or later at the flex position for the week, according to Fantasy Pros Consensus Ratings, but will still get you double digit fantasy points in your flex spots. Let’s take a look at the players who will be the “Sexy Flexies” for week 10!
John Brown – WR – Buffalo Bills – at Arizona
Last week we saw Josh Allen and the Bills offense come back to life with a high scoring performance that helped basically everyone who rosters Bills in fantasy football. Buffalo hung 44 points on the Seahawks while Allen outdueled MVP favorite Russell Wilson. We know the Seahawks secondary is among the worst in the league, but it was still nice to see the Bills offense clicking again. John Brown, limited in practice all week with the lingering knee injury, saw 10 targets and reeled in 8 catches for 99 yards in the week 9 win.
This week the Bills will likely be in another shootout as they take on the Arizona Cardinals. Allen will again have to try to outduel one of the leagues top QBs in Kyler Murray. Last week we saw the Cardinals defense susceptibility to a passing attack as rookie Tua Tagovailoa threw for nearly 250 yards and 2 TDs against them. John Brown will get a favorable matchup seeing a lot of Dre Kirkparick and the Cardinals defense will likely be focused on limiting the red hot Stefon Diggs. We saw Allen look Brown’s way often in a high scoring game last week and I expect more of the same this week, especially with the extra attention to Diggs on the other side. I look for another high target, high production game from “Smokey” Brown and this time lets see him get in the endzone for us also!
Jonathan Taylor – RB – Indianapolis Colts – at Tennessee (*Thursday Night)
I never thought I’d be able to use Jonathan Taylor in this column! Being that I can only use players outside the consensus top 60 in this article, JT has never been available to me here. Taylor has seen his fantasy value plummet as of late due to the full-fledged running back by committee approach that Frank Reich is playing in Indy. Over the past 2 weeks we have seen Taylor be out snapped by Jordan Wilkins which is certainly trivial after spending a high draft pick on the explosive rookie. Reich said this week that he still has confidence in Taylor and I think this week he will show that and Taylor gets back on track.
The matchup is there for a revival for Taylor as the Titans are 26th against fantasy running backs. Taylor will likely get the start again and if he gets going early, he will get the bulk of the work with that “hot hand” approach Reich likes to use. Even with the lackluster last couple of weeks, JT has scored 9 or more fantasy points in 7 of 8 games played and has eclipsed double digits in 5 of 8. This game has the makings of a grind it out, ground and pound game so the game script favors the running game. The RBBC is a scary situation, but I look for Taylor to get back on track in this one and rush 10-12 times for 60-70 yards while adding a couple of receptions. Adding a touchdown to that against a porous run defense and Taylor is a solid double-digit scoring Thursday Night Special Flexie.
As always, lets crush this week and hopefully these Sexy Flexies will help you get some wins. Both players have great double-digit point upside and should have significant roles in their team’s game plan this week. Don’t forget, for some more help with setting your lineups check out Rudy Gamble’s Pigskinator for weekly projections! I always encourage you to follow me on twitter @fantasycoachjb and ask me all your questions there as well. Good luck in all your matchups this week!
