Fantasy Football Band-Aids for Five Notable Injuries

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“If you made it through Week 2 without getting one of those little red injury tags on your roster, congratulations you won.”

CBS Sports’ Dave Richard tweeted that yesterday, and he hit the nail on the head. 

Both the volume and severity of player injuries in week two was nothing short of devastating. For fantasy football players, they should serve as reminders to always have a backup plan, most likely in the form of a handcuff (Handcuff= player directly behind a player you roster on their team’s depth chart who would shoulder most of the vacated touches should your rostered player miss time for any reason)

Here are some fantasy band-aids going forward. 

If you lost Saquon Barkley Sunday, you’re going to need to get creative the rest of the way. I say that because in Barkley’s only two games of 2020, he finished with 1.8 yards per attempt. Do you think Dion Lewis or Devonta Freeman can best that? The Giants don’t have an offensive lineman earning higher than a 60.9 grade on Pro Football Focus at the moment, so Lewis and Freeman (if signed) aren’t high-priority waiver claims. Instead, try buying low on someone like Evan Engram, Le’Veon Bell or Joe Mixon, or just handcuffing a healthy running back in anticipation of more injuries. 

Christian McCaffrey was well on his way to living up to his virtually-unanimous #1 overall fantasy selection. With the news of his being sidelined for “multiple weeks,” per ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Mike Davis seems like the direct successor, but the Panthers did give both WR Curtis Samuel and S/LB Jeremy Chinn carries on Sunday. I’m adding Davis over Samuel, but either one is sitting on my bench until they prove to have any fantasy value in a CMC-less Carolina offense. 

Death, taxes, and flashes of Jordan Reed. MAN, was he solid in Kittle’s absence. If I’m a Kittle owner I’m rostering Reed ASAP. Hopefully, Reed’s seven catches for fifty yards and two scores isn’t enough to eat into a healthy Kittle’s workload the rest of the way, but should Kittle miss any more time, you have a viable tight end. 

There’s limited information on Davante Adams’ ankle or hamstring out there right now, but if he were to miss time, both Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Allen Lazard would be in for healthy target shares from Aaron Rodgers, making them both worthy waiver wire adds.

Courtland Sutton and Drew Lock going down in the game after Phillip Lindsay’s departure in the season Von Miller is missing with an ankle injury… the Broncos are reeling and it appears as though their eggs are in the basket of rookie Jerry Jeudy. Jeudy is only available in 25% of ESPN leagues, but 2020 2nd-round pick KJ Hamler is available in 99%. Go get Hamler, but cap your expectations in anticipation of Lock missing time.