As the fantasy football season rolls on, streaming quarterbacks has become increasingly necessary. Last week we lost Big Ben Roethlisberger, and Ryan Fitzpatrick completed the Ryan Fitzpatrick Cycle by getting benched for Geno Smith. With Carolina and Dallas also on bye, about one-eighth of the league is looking in dire straits at quarterback. That’s not even including sub-par quarterback play. There’s been a lot of pain at the edges of the quarterback ranks, and that has made streaming more difficult. As always, the sleeper quarterbacks start at under 50% ownership on Yahoo!, with one player under 10% ownership for deeper leagues. Ownership figures are as of Saturday afternoon.[embedit snippet=”jeff-ads”]
Alex Smith versus New Orleans (36% ownership)
Smith isn’t a high upside play, and instead represents a nice, safe floor for your fantasy football team. If you’re looking for 25+ potential, go one guy down. If you’re looking for someone to reliably get you around 18-20 points and not blow up your week, go get Smith. He’s doing Alex Smith things, getting a Saints squad that can’t stop the quarterback, yielding multiple touchdowns in three straight weeks and over 300 yards in four of five weeks. The season low on the Saints was Eli Manning’s 12.32, but even he threw for over 360 yards against this woeful secondary.
Joe Flacco at New York Jets (30% ownership)
I told myself I wouldn’t do this again, but Flacco has yet another great matchup against a woeful Jets secondary that is allowing the sixth-most passing big plays so far this season. With downfield threats like Breshad Perriman and Mike Wallace to throw to, Flacco should be able to take advantage of this matchup. He is banged up with a shoulder injury, so you must see if he is going to be active (he’s expected to play). He doesn’t make a great DFS option because of his pricing and injury, but there are worse options out there to stream at his ownership.
Deep Dive
Colin Kaepernick versus Tampa Bay (11%)
Okay, so I cheated. But here are your sub-10% quarterbacks: Case Keenum, Geno Smith and Landry Jones. I’ll take the demerit to get the player who has week-winning upside at near-deep dive ownership. Let’s get this straight: Colin Kaepernick did not look good last week. He had a lot of the same issues he had before, except he showed slightly more pocket presence and seemed to trust his eyes instead of fearing pressure. Still, last week he went for 66 rush yards while chipping in 187 passing yards and a score. He managed over 18 fantasy points while going cross-country against a stout Bills defense. This week he travels back to Levi’s Stadium to take on a Tampa Bay squad that has given up multiple passing touchdowns to every team this season except the Derek Anderson led Panthers. He’s a swing for the fences, and better off a DFS play, but he was a top-fifteen back last week in his first action in a year while traveling across country to play a very good Bills defense. He undoes all those detriments to his game this week.