NFL Fantasy Stock Report, Week 10: The Case of Calvin Ridley
All rankings and scores based on .5 PPR scoring
Stock Up
Josh Dobbs: Josh Dobbs, take your bow. You deserve it. I don’t even care that I just put him on this list last week. He found his way here because he was merely given the chance to keep playing and he crushed expectations again. With 25.12 fantasy points, this makes his fifth weekly QB1 finish this season and he has a rushing touchdown in four straight games proving his rushing upside is for real. I have a feeling Dobbs is cementing himself a long-term backup position at the very least. I wouldn’t even blame a team for giving him a shot next year if he keeps this up.
Sure, Kevin O’Connel has coached the crap out of this team and Dobbs especially as he’s learned on the fly but Dobbs continues to show he can perform with practically zero prep work and that’s truly astonishing in the NFL. The Vikings schedule opens up from here on out as their toughest games left are against the Bengals and Lions, both of which have defenses that can be taken advantage of. Dobbs has truly been a treat to watch and I’m looking forward to more. He’s been an absolute fantasy home run.
Davante Adams: Davante’s season has been one of the biggest letdowns in fantasy. He was a consensus second-round pick and a guy many people relied on to be their WR1. Four double-digit point games out of your second-round pick just isn't going to cut it. He still somehow finds himself as the WR14 thanks to a massive 35.7 week 3 game against the Steelers but his span of games from weeks 5-9 saw 45 yards or less in every game. However, the Raiders firing Josh McDaniels may have saved his fantasy season.
A lot of Adams’ struggles can be attributed to bad quarterback play and overall team and offensive dysfunction. In their first game without McDaniels, they crushed the Giants 30-6 in a game where they honestly didn’t even really need Adams as they controlled every aspect of that game from the opening kick. This week he saw a whopping 13 targets catching six for 86 yards. I don’t think Aidan O’Connell is the long term answer at quarterback but I do think he’s shown enough to be competent. Their new offensive coordinator Bo Hardegree is clearly going to feed Adams and with O’Connell at the helm I think the Raiders at least show some life the rest of the way. Great news for Adams as he has a chance to do some major damage in the fantasy playoffs if the targets keep coming.
Mike Evans: After another big game Evans is now the WR9. Not too bad for a seventh-round pick if you ask me. He was drafted as the WR32 so his return value has been massive. He continues to be one of the most consistent receivers in the league and is on pace for his tenth year straight of 1,000 yards receiving, every year of his career. Plus, he averages almost eight targets a game and has a 23% target share this season. With only two games without double-digit fantasy points he has been insanely consistent while still holding great upside like we saw this week with his 23.3 performance against the Titans. The Buccaneers are going to be a scrappy team down the stretch as they fight for a division title which is a promising outlook for Evans.
Stock Down
Tony Pollard: Like Davante Adams, Pollard has been a massive fantasy disappointment to this point. Unlike Davante Adams, Pollard is trending in the opposite direction. As the Cowboys have seemingly found their identity throwing the ball, Tony Pollard has drawn the short straw. He hasn’t topped 55 rushing yards since week three and he hasn’t scored a touchdown since week one. Once again, like Adams, Pollard was a mid-second round pick and a guy to be relied on heavily. He’s currently the RB22 which isn’t terrible but he’s looked bad the last three weeks. The fractured leg he suffered last season in the playoffs clearly has hampered his breakaway speed and he just doesn’t look like the same guy.
To make matters worse he just got out-touched and outplayed by Rico Dowdle in their blowout of the Giants. I know it was a blowout but Dowdle was keeping pace with Pollard snap-wise until they pulled Pollard in the third quarter. Rico Dowdle isn’t coming to take Pollard’s job by any means but I wouldn’t be shocked to see him carve into Pollard's workload moving forward. The biggest reason I’m concerned for Pollard is that even in a game where the Cowboys were dominating and the Giants never had a shred of hope they continued to throw the ball. You kept thinking it was Pollard time for the Cowboys to just chew clock in the second half but they kept throwing and they kept throwing it deep too. It sure seems like the Cowboys have figured things out and Tony Pollard might not be as big of a part of things as we originally thought.
Will Levis: Levis looked very promising through two starts and had fantasy managers scrambling to acquire him. His 26.62 fantasy point, four-touchdown performance was followed up with a short prep week and a game where he looked solid eye test-wise. He was brought back to earth on Sunday against the Buccaneers completing 19 of 39 passes for only 199 yards and an interception. His completion percentage has now fallen in every game and the Titans offense has put up 22 combined points in the last two weeks. They can’t get the run going the way they want with poor offensive line play which is the key that makes their offense go. It’s tough to ask a rookie to shoulder the load on offense with little going well around him and as he puts more film out there I think defensive coordinators are learning how to handle him. If you added him on waivers, it’s no cost to ride it out if you don’t need the bench spot but I also think he’s droppable in redraft. Unfortunately, his four-touchdown game to start his career sent a lot of people to the trade market and they paid up for him and that will likely be a huge mistake.
Calvin Ridley: Yeah, it’s time. I get the whole offense sucked against the 49ers but the stars were aligned for a big Ridley week. He caught two of three targets for 20 yards. He topped 40 yards only three times this season and has two WR1 weekly finishes. The hype for Ridley was real as he found himself to be a third-round pick and the WR15. I fell for it too. I’m not saying he won’t have some good games the rest of the season but the expectations of this dominant number one wide receiver are gone.
This offense is going to run through Christian Kirk in the passing game more than anyone else and even Evan Engram at times more than Ridley. Without the Jaguars having the super high-powered, explosive offense we thought they would have, it’s hard for them to have multiple guys who carry that much fantasy value. The real stinger here is I doubt we will see Zay Jones again this year after his arrest Sunday evening and he has been huge in providing another threat to help shift some attention from Calvin. There’s not a chance in the world I would’ve believed you if you told he would be the WR42 through ten weeks but here we are. Like I said, I don’t think Calvin is dead but at this point he may not even be finding your starting lineups and that’s depressing.
