On Target: Make Or Break Time

RED ZONE CONVERSION

Initially, Steve Johnson, Malcom Floyd and Dontrelle Inman are now weekly start/sit candidates and certainly viable for daily fantasy. Johnson and Floyd already have very clear and defined roles in this offense but with Allen out, each should see several more targets per game. The Chargers have thrown the ball more than anyone else in the NFL and I don't see that stopping anytime soon. Overall, they are not a good football team and that will beget more passes. With Keenan Allen going down, the team is losing 25 percent of their total targets. Inman is really interesting here because he profiles as a red zone weapon more so than Floyd or Johnson. He also saw eight and nine targets in the two games that Allen missed last season. He is most likely to actually fill in Allen's position in the San Diego offense. No player on the Chargers has more than four receiving TDs despite 19 passing touchdowns as a team, which means week to week all three of these players will certainly have some volatility. It is my job to take stances on players in fantasy so I'll rank them this way going forward: Floyd, Johnson, Inman but I think that Inman will provide more "week-winning" performances than Johnson. That is quite a hedge but seems to be the most likely outcome.

While we wouldn't necessarily connect RB injuries to WR performance, the injury to Le'Veon Bell will very much alter the Pittsburgh Steelers passing game. Bell has played snaps as a wide receiver and commands respect and touches at the goal line in way that DeAngelo Williams certainly won't. With Ben Roethlisberger healthy and starting now, there are two players whose value is not being judged accurately by the market. Martavis Bryant is likely to score points at a top-15, if not top-10, pace at the wide receiver position for the rest of the year. He is an elite red zone option and with the team expected to throw more in general, a volume boost will do things for his numbers that are not being projected right now. Additionally, Heath Miller is far outside the top tier of tight end valuation but is likely to see around eight targets per game moving forward with a bit of red zone work thrown in. With Landry Jones and Mike Vick at the helm Miller was a non-entity for fantasy, but in this Steelers climate I'd put him just behind Gronk, Eifert, Jordan Reed, Gary Barnidge and Travis Kelce.

Finally, I think the Chicago Bears offense on Monday Night is going to look a lot different than most would expect. With no Matt Forte and no Eddie Royal, the primary beneficiary other than obviously Jeremy Langford will be Marquess Wilson. I would be genuinely surprised if Langford doesn't average at least 18 touches per game moving forward and you should do whatever you can to get him in any format as I think before he plays a game, there will be enough doubt that you can get him cheaply. In DFS, he is basically a must play. Wilson is really interesting because anytime he has been given a starting job, he has performed above average relative to the player he is replacing. With Eddie Royal slated to miss several weeks with injury, I'm making Wilson a priority pickup as the Bears bad defense will keep Chicago passing and I love him as a cheap flier in daily fantasy formats.