We expect George Pickens to return in Week 17 against the Kansas City Chiefs. If you were able to advance to Championship Weekend without Pickens, congratulations. You now have a difficult decision to make.
It's never easy to decide what to do with a player returning from injury, but Pickens' profile makes it even more difficult. The 23-year-old scored 16.4 PPR Fantasy points and has scored that many or more in three of his last four games and four of his past six. But the way he scores those points doesn't exactly feel reliable. He only has one game with more than five catches since September and one 100-yard game as well.
Pickens is a boom-bust WR2, coming off an injury. His Steelers have an implied total of 20.25 points against a Kansas City defense that has been boom-or-bust this season. Pickens' profile likely makes his projection less predictive because he rarely has an average game. That being said, his PPR projection has him at 12.45 PPR Fantasy points in Week 17, which ranks him at WR24.
Adam Thielen, A.J. Brown (with Kenny Pickett), Jayden Reed, Jameson Williams, Khalil Shakir, and Garrett Wilson are all within a half a point of Pickens in the projections. This the "borderline WR2 portion of the rankings, which is one of the more difficult areas of the rankings each week. The best thing I can tell you is that if you start three wide receivers, you should probably be starting Pickens. If you start two wide receivers, you'd better have two you really like if you're benching Pickens or one of the other names in this paragraph.
Dalton Schultz could be a good streamer without Dell.
WR Preview
Numbers to Know
91 -- Mike Evans must average at least 91 yards per game in his final two games to reach 1,000 yards for the 11th straight season.
30.8% -- Drake London maintained a 30% target share in Michael Penix's first start. As long as London is healthy, he's a must-start.
56 -- Garrett Wilson has produced 56 yards or fewer in five of his last six games. He's a Fantasy WR3 at this point.
37.4% -- Puka Nacua's 37.4% target per route run is four points higher than any other wide receiver in the NFL.
3.00 -- Marquise Brown earned three yards per route run in his Chiefs debut.
12 -- Deebo Samuel had 12 touches in Week 16, his highest total since Week 1.
2.55 -- Nick Westbrook-Ikhin has scored 2.55 Fantasy points per target this season. That's No. 1 amongst receivers who have run at least 300 routes this season.
57.1 -- Jalen McMillan is WR11 over the past three weeks with 57.1 PPR Fantasy points.
Over the last three weeks Jalen McMillan has 14 catches for 191 yards and four touchdowns on 20 targets. With Sterling Shepard possibly out, we could see McMillan's target share go even higher in Week 17. He's a number three wide receiver this week who has top-12 upside in a given week. In fact, he's actually been a top-12 wide receiver over the last three weeks combined.
Last week was disappointing for Coker, but he still had a 19% target share from Bryce Young. This should be a high volume passing game from Young against a Tampa Bay defense that is much better against the run. Six different wide receivers have scored double-digit PPR Fantasy points against Tampa Bay in their last four games. View Coker as an upside flex.
Brown just scored 9.5 PPR Fantasy points on eight targets in a game where he only played 20 offensive snaps. If his involvement increases in Week 17 he could be a must-start wide receiver. I am viewing him as a boom/bust flex because of the bad matchup and the fact that we have only seen Brown play 20 snaps all season, but last week was very encouraging if you need to throw a dart at a flex this week.
At wide receiver this week we don't have Ja'Marr Chase, Puka Nacua, or Nico Collins available in DFS. Thankfully, we have the guy who has outscored all of them the past two weeks in Brian Thomas. Thomas has 19 catches for 237 yards and three touchdowns in his last two games as he makes his push for OROY. He has four straight games with double-digit targets including 12 the last time he faced Tennessee.
Thankfully Marvin Harrison isn't on the main slate this week so I can't burn money that way. Calvin Ridley may be the next best thing. Ridley is a boom/bust WR3 with a great matchup, and it just happens to be a revenge game, though that didn't go well for him last time. The Jaguars have given up the third-most FPPG to opposing wide receivers.
WR Preview
Heath's Projections
My full set of Week 17 Fantasy football projections for every position are now available on SportsLine. Find out which of my favorite plays are projected to score higher than consensus rankings and which don't live up to their draft hype, at least in Week 17. Projected stats for all starting wide receivers are available, so be sure to find my projections for every position over at SportsLine.
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