Heading into NFL Week 10 is a crucial time for fantasy football managers. Those sitting at 6-3 or better are looking to set their teams up for the fantasy playoffs, while those at 5-4 or worse are scratching and clawing to stay in the hunt.
With talk swirling around the return of players such as Odell Beckham Jr. and Deshaun Watson, stashing players like this grows in importance, and you need to prepare your roster if you are looking to add them.
Nine games into the regular season, we have a pretty good idea as to who is going to do what for our teams, and it is time to start cutting that dead weight. Sorry if you wasted that third-round pick on Kyle Pitts, but in the immortal words of Regina George to Gretchen Wieners, “Stop trying to make fetch happen. It’s not going to happen.”
Just change “fetch” to Pitts and you’ve got it. In fact, you can probably include Drake London in the conversation as the run-first ways of the Falcons have quarterback Marcus Mariota throwing an average of 22 times per game. Even if you’re looking at a 30 percent target share, there just isn’t enough passing productivity on this team to warrant using in fantasy. Not on a regular basis, at least.
But it doesn’t stop with the Falcons. The rookie receivers on Green Bay can’t stay healthy, and Aaron Rodgers looks like garbage, so maybe Romeo Doubs and Christian Watson can go. Zay Jones clearly isn’t a top target in Jacksonville, so why are we still holding onto him?
Allen Robinson? Gross. Robert Woods? Yuck. Tyquan Thornton? Who? You can probably rid yourself of Darrell Henderson and Darren Waller while you’re at it.
If it hasn’t happened by now for any of these players, chances are, it won’t over the next few weeks. Your roster needs a housecleaning, and it is better to do it now than to wait until it’s too late.
Cutting players you invested in with early picks or players you claimed who you thought had high upside can be tough to do, but no one said winning a championship was easy. Sometimes, it’s making the difficult decisions that makes you a champion. Spare yourself the aggravation of wishing and hoping. Make those tough cuts and get yourself to the championship game.
Howard Bender is the VP of operations and head of content at FantasyAlarm.com. Follow him on Twitter @rotobuzzguy and catch him on the award-winning “Fantasy Alarm Radio Show” on the SiriusXM fantasy sports channel weekdays from 6-8 p.m. Go to FantasyAlarm.com for all your fantasy sports advice, player projections, injury updates and more.