Don’t be surprised if … Jayden Daniels goes down, Tyrone Tracy Jr. shines and Trey Lance plays

Every week in the NFL is its own story — full of surprises, both positive and negative — and fantasy football managers must decide what to believe and what not to believe going forward. Maybe we can help. If any of these thoughts come true… don’t be surprised!

Don’t be surprised if … Jayden Daniels drops from QB1 status this season

After an 8.58 PPR point performance against the Pittsburgh Steelers , investors in Daniels don’t want to acknowledge that the Washington Commanders rookie big simply hasn’t been the same great fantasy option he started out as for more than a month now. Daniels suffered a notable rib injury in Week 7, but perhaps his fantasy value had already begun to decline a week before that.

His season-long numbers are a bit misleading. Through the first five games of this season, Daniels was one of the best stories in the NFL with four top-10 QB fantasy rankings. He got there by relying on his rushing numbers: 300 rushing yards (or 60 per game) and he scored four rushing touchdowns.

But starting with Week 6 against the Baltimore Ravens and including the Week 7 game with the awful Carolina Panthers, when he left early with the rib injury (but not before rushing for 50 yards), Daniels has rushed for 164 yards, or just 32 yards. per game, with nearly a touchdown (Austin Ekeler investors love it).

The Steelers “held” Daniels to 5 rushing yards Sunday, but then again, the Commanders have changed their offense with the goal of keeping their QB healthy. They don’t call QB runs, and Daniels didn’t become a top fantasy prospect because of his throwing ability. In fact, after completing 77% of his passes through five weeks, he’s been at just under 60% since then (combined to 68.7% on the season).

Maybe the Chiefs are waiting for their star QB to heal before redeploying him on defense. Maybe they’ll let him run wild on the NFC East rival Philadelphia Eagles this Thursday night. It could happen. More likely, though, is that the Commanders continue to play it safe with their rookie acquisition. Daniels is great, but many worried about his lanky frame’s ability to stay healthy during his Heisman-winning season at LSU. Even a month ago, his amazing start looked a bit unsustainable.

Daniels boasts just nine passes through 10 games. One of them was the incredibly lucky Week 8 Hail Mary — apologies to Chicago Bears fans for bringing this up — that he didn’t really deserve. Sure, all the passing touchdowns count, but Daniels isn’t a fantasy star for the passing numbers. He needs to run more than he has recently to remain a strong QB1 option, and this Thursday against Philadelphia will be telling.

Don’t be surprised if … the king of RBs in New York (er, New Jersey) is a giant

New York Giants rookie Tyrone Tracy Jr. barely played over the first four games this season when his dysfunctional team thought veteran Devin Singletary was a better option. To be fair, Singletary hardly struggled in September, scoring 14.5 PPR points in Week 2 against the Commanders before adding 18.8 PPR points the following week against the Cleveland Browns. Then Singletary, 27, suffered a groin injury and Tracy, an exciting fifth-round pick out of Purdue, got his chance.

Over the past six games, Tracy has rushed for more than 100 yards three times. He has scored three touchdowns, resulting in a total of 89.2 PPR points or 14.8 per. match. Tracy hasn’t been perfect, as he showed on his last play in Sunday’s game in Germany when he fumbled the football — a mistake that directly led to the team’s overtime loss to the Panthers. Yet he is among them most added fantasy players with good reason. Tracy certainly looks like an RB2 option for the rest of the season.

Meanwhile, the other New Jersey team is losing almost as much as the Giants, but the New York Jets had far greater expectations given their future Hall of Fame QB, a supposedly signature defense and RB Breece Hallwho was selected by fantasy managers in the first round of most leagues. Hall finished last season (despite the mess around him) as the fantasy No. 2 RB, second only to the exalted Christian McCaffrey. He caught 76 passes. No running back had more.

Well, Tracy has outscored Hall in PPR formats over the past six games, and there’s no reason to expect things to change over the past two months. Both New York offenses are a mess, but at least the Giants have committed to Tracy. Returning from the bye week in Week 12, Tracy will face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints. Tracy should help fantasy managers qualify for their playoffs and then help them in December as well.

Hall is still a great player and remains the PPR scoring RB7 for the season, but he has averaged under 11 PPR points in the past three games. Don’t blame Hall. He has averaged 5.1 yards per carry. rush over that span, but the biggest part of his value last season (and early this season) was his receiving totals. He can’t throw the football to himself, and beleaguered QB Aaron Rodgers has targeted Hall just 11 times (7 receptions) over the last three weeks. Hall has just one touchdown since Week 3. None of this means fantasy managers should ditch Hall, of course, but maybe you should think twice before trading preseason value for him — or any other Jets, for that matter fault.

Tracy still has to deal with the mess around him as well, and maybe there will be a QB change for the G-Men. It might not matter. Volume, on the other hand, matters. Tracy is seeing more of that and maybe the Giants will start including him more in the passing game. After all, Tracy is a converted wide receiver. The giants know that. Well, who knows.

Don’t be surprised if … Trey Lance matters in fantasy

Lance, the No. 3 pick in the 2021 NFL draft, hasn’t had much of a pro career, and it’s still very possible that he may never have a relevant one for fantasy purposes (or in real life, for that matter). From no. 3 combined to no. 3 QB for the Cowboys, he played 14 snaps in Sunday’s blowout loss to the Eagles. Few can pretend that the short excursion told us much. Lance threw six passes. A deep pass was picked off, though it wasn’t his fault. He was credited with three rushing attempts. He scored 0.54 PPR points. So why are we talking about Trey Lance?

Well, the Cowboys have decided that veteran Cooper Rush start Monday night’s Week 11 home game against the Houston Texans as Dak Prescott (hamstring) is officially lost for the season. Rush, on 42 snaps in Week 10 against the Eagles, playing at home and with the Suns controversially behind, actually cost the few fantasy managers who trusted him two points. That’s right. Prescott, you and even me — we all surpassed Rush. Rush is 30 years old. His 13 completions totaled 45 yards. Now Rush shouldn’t take all the blame from Sunday’s loss as there is a mess surrounding him both on and off the field, but he is not the future at QB for this or any NFL team.

Lance, blessed with an intriguing combination of size, speed and running ability, was once the future of the excited San Francisco 49ers and many eager fantasy managers as well. Things didn’t quite work out in San Francisco, and Lance took a snap in one NFL game for Dallas last season after they used a relevant draft pick to acquire him. The reason we should pay attention to Lance should he get a chance to play if because of his innate running ability.

This is why everyone overreacted to Anthony Richardson of the Indianapolis Colts this season, so yeah, it doesn’t always work out. That’s why Bo Nix of the Denver Broncos (who, it should be noted, is a few months older than Lance) could end up as a top-10 fantasy QB this season. Running quarterbacks often make up for passing deficiencies in fantasy.

We don’t know if Lance can be an effective fantasy QB, and maybe the desperate and embarrassed Cowboys don’t know either, but you’d think they’d aim to find out at some point soon. Fantasy managers should consider Lance in deeper superflex leagues because even in the dysfunction that is Dallas, things can work out well.