2015 Fantasy FootballFantasy Football

2015 Fantasy Football: Week 5 Gold Mine

The first quarter of the NFL season has officially come and gone and as we are set to begin the second quarter of the season, you should have a pretty good idea of what your chances are to win, get back into the competition or whether your season is over.

If you are a part of the later and you’re 0 – 4 or 1 – 3, you really aren’t in very good shape and you’ll need to make some major overhauls if you plan on competing. Fantasy may be completely different than the NFL itself, but the statistics of NFL teams starting 1 – 3 or 0 – 4 and making the playoffs are not very good and for the most part they have a full season to make a comeback, while you only have about ten more weeks.

Even if you are a part of the select few who are flying high in your league sitting at 3 – 1 or even 4 – 0, with bye weeks starting to heat up – four teams are missing time this week – there are still plenty of moves that you can make to solidify your team throughout the worst stretch of football because of the players you could miss from one week to another.

As always you’ll find a group of guys below who are all owned in an extremely low amount of leagues and should get a second or even third look in some cases.

The following players are all owned in less than 35% of ESPN Leagues. Don’t play in an ESPN league? Don’t worry, we’ve provided you with the ownership numbers for Yahoo, NFL and salary data for both Fanduel and Draftkings.

Kamar Aiken – ESPN: 15.8; Yahoo: 13; NFL: 1.6; FD: 5.8K; DK: 3.8K

We think its pretty safe to say that the Baltimore Ravens pass catching situation is an abomination at this point. Breshad Perriman can’t get healthy and even Dr. James Andrews has no idea why. Steve Smith has broken ribs and will miss time, Crockett Gillmore missed last week and could potentially miss more and Justin Forsett hasn’t been a factor at all in the passing game. With all of those players down its going to be Kamar Aiken getting almost all the targets in Baltimore and the numbers are proving that to be fact. In Aiken’s last two games he has recorded seven targets, five receptions and at least 77 yards in each with 89 coming against Oakland three weeks ago and a touchdown last week.

With all the injuries in the Mid-Atlantic Aiken is quickly becoming the guy, and that calls for a pretty nice pick up this week and beyond. The Ravens get to face back-to-back division foes this week as they take on the Browns following their Thursday Night Football victory over the Steelers last week. The Browns have been one of the absolute worst defenses against the pass this season giving up 26.3 points per game to opposing WRs. With Joe Haden missing time last week due to a broken finger they may be even worse this week.

Jay Cutler – ESPN: 15.1; Yahoo: 31; NFL: 61.9; FD: 7.4K; DK: 5.3K

Jay Cutler made a big splash last week coming back from a hamstring injury that normally can cripple players for many weeks. Cutler was able to turn that into a big game against a Raiders team who hasn’t really been known for stopping QBs this year, leading the Bears to a big 4th quarter victory. Cutler certainly has his own problems on the field and consistently makes mistakes, but for as many mistakes he makes he definitely makes plenty of big time plays as well. With Eddie Royal and Cutler’s rapport picking up a little bit and with Alshon Jeffery almost ready to comeback Cutler is looking like a pretty decent sleeper play moving forward. Cutler’s Week 5 opponent, Kansas City, is ranked as the single worst fantasy passing defense in the league giving up 22.3 points per game to signal callers this year. Cutler should be able to exploit the Chiefs inept defense in a week where you’re missing Bridgewater, Newton, Fitzpatrick and Tannehill.

Willie Snead – ESPN: 13.8; Yahoo: 32; NFL: 1.1; FD: 5.3K; DK: 3K

Brandin Cooks has not been the 2nd or 3rd round WR we were drafting him to be so far this year. With only two games over four receptions he has failed to score or gain more than 100 yards in any of the four games so far. Meanwhile the guy no one saw coming, Willie Snead, is quickly making a name for himself and is becoming one of the more comfortable targets for Drew Brees. Snead who has averaged just over six targets per game over the last three weeks has increased the number of receptions in each of them and last week put up 89 yards against the Cowboys. He hasn’t scored since Week 2 of the season against the Bucs, but with his targets and receptions increasing slowly but surely those numbers should go up as well. This week Snead gets to face the Eagles who have been as inept as they come against opposing wideouts this season giving up nearly 27 points per game to them. The Eagles have allowed a WR to score at least once in each of the first four games with at least 200 yards receiving in three of them.

Brandon Weeden – ESPN: 5.5; Yahoo: 5; NFL: 4.6; FD: 6.4K; DK: 5.1K

Brandon Weeden has shown two things so far. A) He isn’t going to be the reason the Cowboys lose games and B) He won’t be the reason they win them either. Weeden has steadily played well enough to keep the Cowboys relevant deep into the last two games, and if not for the defense giving up big time scores late in both of those games, Weeden’s play could have been good enough to win the team a game or two. Weeden is proving to be a “game manager” and isn’t forcing things too much and certainly isn’t really making many mistakes at all with only one interception over the last two games. The Cowboys get the Patriots this week that are coming off a bye and still trying to prove a point to the league by scoring at will. The game should get pretty ugly for the Cowboys this week, despite both Greg Hardy and Rolando McClain coming back for the defense, and that only benefits Weeden. The Pats haven’t played very well against opposing QBs this season giving up six passing TDs and 835 yards good for a ranking of fourth worst in the league. If the game gets out of hand, Weeden could put up plenty of garbage time production and could even find the end zone once or twice in this one.

Chris Thompson – ESPN: 3.3; Yahoo: 3; NFL: 1.2; FD: 5.1K; DK: 3.3K

Did you lose Lance Dunbar? Do you have Darren Sproles and realize that he isn’t performing? Well, Chris Thompson is an extremely similar player to both of the aforementioned players and has the ability to catch a ton of passes out of the backfield. Shifty and speedy, small and elusive are all great descriptions for a guy who can easily exploit the line-backing core of any squad. Two weeks ago Thompson caught eight passes on eleven targets but despite just two catches on three targets a week ago Thompson did receive plenty of touches in the running game, gaining more than 50 yards on six carries. Thompson is a very deep play and probably more of a PPR play than a Non-PPR one, but with the loss of Jordan Reed and DeSean Jackson still not ready to go, Thompson should still hold a good amount of value in some leagues. The Falcons rank as the worst rushing defense this year giving up 26.3 points per game to halfbacks. A lot of that has to do with the Cowboys scoring four times in Week 3 but the Falcons have given up scores to running backs in three of four weeks including two weeks of at least two touchdowns. In another game that could get out of hand pretty quickly, Thompson could get plenty of garbage time that Matt Jones or Alfred Morris wouldn’t get if they were down big.

We are only four games through and in many leagues there is still plenty of time to make a push for the playoffs but as the bye weeks start to get bigger and bigger each week you’ll need to make some moves to keep yourself above water.

As always you can find me on Twitter @JustinMandaro. Ask your start / sit questions right up until game time!

Previous post

2015 Fantasy Football: Week 4 Target Update

Next post

2015 Fantasy Football: Week 5 Stock Watch