One of the vagaries of chasing and streaming tight ends in fantasy football is that you must respond quickly to strike while the iron is hot as trends develop and hit the perfect confluence of trend and opportunity. I am not going to delude you into thinking that Fiedorowicz is a quality NFL player who is worthy of a weekly start for your squad, but he is a player worthy of slotting into your starting rotation this week due to the perfect confluence of opportunity and opponent.[embedit snippet=”jeff-ads”]
While Fiedorowicz was limited to only 35 yards last week and has crossed the seven-point TE1 plateau only twice this season, the production already garnered is not the reason why Fiedorowicz is a recommended play this week. Instead, it was a definite shift in team philosophy that led to increased opportunity. There is a nearly perfect delineation between the Texans not using Fiedorowicz and the Texans using Fiedorowicz. In weeks 1-4, he had four targets. In weeks 5-8, he had 27, for an average of just under seven targets a week. The production we are chasing with Fiedorowicz isn’t fluky touchdowns or amassed yardage. It is constant and consistent scheming to give him the opportunity to succeed. And he has snatched that chance, as he has gone for 10, 6 (in a bad matchup against Minnesota), 14 in three of those four matchups. Last week he mustered 3 points, but the Broncos dismantled Brock Osweiler in basically every facet of the game.
This week the Texans go up against the Lions who are awful in basically every facet of pass defense, but especially so against tight ends. They are third in the league in fantasy points against by tight ends and have yielded seven touchdowns to tight ends in as many weeks this year. And this is while facing such tight end luminaries as Richard Rodgers, Lance Kendricks and Zach Miller. The Lions play a wide open and efficient passing game as well, which means there will be plenty of scores against the Texans that will prevent Houston from turtling and running the ball 40 times to shorten the game and keep the Lions offense off the field.
Fiedorowicz isn’t a great tight end, all things considered, but he is the best the Texans have. They have seemed to realize this in recent weeks, and there has been a stark uptick in his production over the last four games. The Texans are taking on a defensively deficient Lions squad that will allow him to continue his streak of hot output and recover from the hiccup in that streak from last week.