Getty Gallery: 2/6
Start: WR Tyler Boyd at Chiefs
Sit: WR Sammy Watkins vs. Bengals
Boyd has been one of the pleasant surprises of the fantasy season. Boyd was a red zone monster against the Steelers with two touchdowns to go with his seven receptions for 62 yards. Boyd has had an opportunity to learn from one of the best receivers in the game, A.J. Green, something Boyd admitted has helped his progression.
“Coming in, watching him, helped my game,” Boyd told the Post-Gazette. “He helped me, learning how to play at the professional football level. He does everything right. He never takes a practice off. It’s his eighth year and he’s still going strong, like he’s still competing for a job, even though his job is solidified. You never hear about A.J. in trouble. He don’t drink, he don’t do anything.”
Boyd has had at least seven targets in five straight games, and most weeks he is getting much more than that. Boyd had nine targets in Week 6 and 15 targets in Week 4.
The Bengals offense gets a plus matchup this week against the Chiefs. Kansas City is giving up more than 340 yards per game, the second most in the NFL.
Boyd gives us the ideal combination in Week 7. The Bengals wide receiver is trending up, receiving a lot of targets and gets a great matchup against the Chiefs secondary. The Athletic's Joe Goodberry wrote in late September about how Boyd is making Andy Dalton a better quarterback.
"Dalton is targeting Boyd this season when he’s pressured,' Goodberry explained. "Dalton has thrown toward Boyd on nine plays in which he was feeling the heat through three weeks. No other receiver has seen the ball more than four times (Giovani Bernard and John Ross) in the same situations. Dalton has only thrown the ball away three times in 2018 and hasn’t done so in the last two weeks because Boyd is getting open in these crucial moments. He’s on pace to throw away the football half as many times as he did the last two years — a welcomed development in the quarterback’s game."
Sammy Watkins Cannot Be Trusted in Fantasy
The Chiefs offense is explosive, but that explosiveness has not always led to fantasy production for Watkins. The Chiefs wide receiver put together two solid weeks during Week 2-3. Since then, he has been inconsistent from week to week. Watkins had just two receptions for 18 yards against the Patriots. Patrick Mahomes is spreading the ball around, but that makes it difficult to predict when to put Watkins into your lineup.
According to CBS Sports, Watkins posted season lows in Week 6 in all statistical categories in games where he played the majority of snaps. The Bengals have one of the worst secondaries in the league, but we do not know if Watkins is going to produce.
This season is nothing new for Watkins. For all of his talent coming out of Clemson, Watkins has tended to be boom or bust in the NFL. I'm keeping him on my bench until he proves he is able to string multiple productive weeks together this season.