Every week, at least one player becomes my fascination of whether he’s worthy of a fantasy football start as a streamer. The decision can be a mental wrestling match, but for the purpose of brevity, only one player can be chosen as the fantasy football gamble of the week.
The best fantasy football gamble for Week 9
Tracking my predictions: 2-5-1
Win: Player produces ≥ 75% of projected fantasy points
Loss: Player produces >75% of projected fantasy points
Tie: Player is ejected, leaves with an injury, or lands on COVID-19 list after publishing
2021 record: 8-9-1
2020 record: 5-10-1
A tie … meh. Last week’s inclusion of Minnesota Vikings tight end Irv Smith marked the second straight week in which the player chosen for this article series met an untimely fate. After Week 7’s inclusion, Matt Ryan was benched for the remainder of 2022, and Smith now will miss up to 10 weeks after suffering an ankle injury. Given the rules of scoring “winners” and “losers” in this segment, an injury counts as a tie.
Let’s see which player I can kneecap for the third consecutive week …
Green Bay Packers RB AJ Dillon at Detroit Lions
Dillon has to be among the most disappointing preseason darlings of the fantasy football season, and it hasn’t been for a lack of opportunities. He has rushed at least 10 times in six of eight outings and has averaged more targets than last year. Frustratingly, this has amounted to one touchdown — which came a million years ago in Week 1 — and no showings of more than 9.4 PPR points since the opening week.
After nearly two months of being a lineup anchor following the Week 1 teaser, it’s understandable why gamers have given up on Dillon as a weekly starter. The results just haven’t been good enough, and there are only so many times a fantasy owner can risk a precious lineup spot on a string of paperweight performances.
Two simplistic factors are at play to make Dillon a viable Week 9 starter: A fortuitous scheduling of six teams on their byes coincides with an intradivisional date with Detroit’s laughably weak defense. In this case, necessity alone may make Dillon a starter for some gamers, but it’s really the matchup itself to side with in this one.
Detroit has given up the most rushing TDs in 2022 (11 through seven games), and just Cleveland has allowed more total TDs to the position, which took an extra game to happen. The position has racked up 10 individual performances of at least 11.2 points in PPR scoring. RBs have averaged more than 5.2 yards per carry, and four of the nine players to rush for a TD haven’t even been their respective team’s RB1. This matchup is 19.4 percent easier than the league average for positional success.
One aspect that’s more difficult to account for but still could be working Dillon’s favor is Green Bay’s pathetic passing game. Detroit is equally as terrible at preventing wideouts from wreaking havoc, and it’s a larger leap of faith to assume the Packers’ unimpressive passing attack will find more success through the air than on the ground.
While Aaron Jones will get the majority of chances to gash this group, Dillon shouldn’t be far behind him in touches, especially if this one gets out of hand early on.
My projection: 13 carries, 71 yards, 1 TD, 2 targets, 2 receptions, 13 yards (16.4 PPR fantasy points)
