Should You Add Tank Bigsby, Tyler Lockett, Dak Prescott, Other Dropped Fantasy Football Players?

Oftentimes, the best pickup of a fantasy football season isn’t a player who went undrafted. Instead, it’s someone who was originally selected or added early in the season but later dropped by an impatient manager after a bad week or two. It’s important to keep an eye on players being dropped in your leagues, but sometimes valuable players can slip through the cracks.

Luckily, the Fantasy Assistant is here to help. The Fantasy Assistant uses Predictive Analytics to calculate Expected Drop Interest (EDI) for every player each week. EDI is an estimation of the percentage of leagues in which a player will be or has been dropped each week. If you sync your fantasy league, you will be able to see which of those players have become available in your particular league. Here are this week’s leaders in EDI:

    

The top three players in EDI this week are an injured kicker and two defenses, a sign that fantasy football managers are making fewer moves as we get further into our season. Still, there are some options to consider among skill position players being given up on. Let’s break them down.

RB Tank Bigsby, Jacksonville Jaguars 

Travis Etienne returned to the Jaguars’ backfield this week, and Bigsby immediately dropped his worst fantasy performance of the last month with just 2.2 Half-PPR points. With that said, I actually think Bigsby’s Week 9 usage was very encouraging for his value going forward. The sophomore RB led the Jaguars’ backfield with a 57% snap share, handled eight of the team’s 13 RB rushes, and even posted his highest route participation rate of the season at 43%. 

However, it’s worth noting that Etienne dominated snaps in the first half, playing 13 of 18. His playing time dropped off a cliff in the second half, perhaps due to lingering issues with his hamstring injury or perhaps in response to him tossing the ball up for grabs on what eventually became a Trevor Lawrence “interception.”

Regardless of why they changed their minds, it’s clear the Jaguars originally intended to use Etienne as their lead back in his return to the field. This is a bad sign for Tank, as it's very hard to imagine both backs maintaining fantasy relevance on this struggling, injury-riddled offense. With all that said, I don’t think dropping Bigbsy is the right move (yet). He did still lead this backfield last week, and he has been one of the league’s most efficient RBs so far. If he’s available in your league, scoop him up.

QB Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys

I’m going to keep this one short. Prescott, who was already not necessarily a must-roster at QB20 in points per game, is now on the Cowboys’ IR with a hamstring injury. In 1-QB leagues with no IR slots, he’s a very safe drop and not someone worth chasing on waivers. 

WR Tyler Lockett, Seattle Seahawks

Lockett actually put up his second best fantasy finish of the season on Sunday, but managers are likely moving on because the Seahawks are on bye in Week 10, after which D.K. Metcalf will hopefully return to the field. I can’t really argue with the logic. In deep leagues, Lockett has some value as the WR3 on the league’s most pass-happy team in terms of pass rate vs. expected. But he’s not worth holding in most formats with Metcalf healthy. 

RB Alexander Mattison, Las Vegas Raiders

Here, however, is someone who absolutely should not be dropped. After serving as a legit bell cow for a few weeks, Mattison’s role did get worse in Week 9 — he gave up a goal-line TD to Zamir White and was out-snapped by passing-down specialist Ameer Abdullah. 

But Mattison still led the Raiders in touches, and we can’t just ignore that he has been a workhorse for most of the season. Las Vegas may change their RB usage following the firing of OC Luke Getsy, but Mattison is a must-roster, at least until we see how things shake out. If he was dropped in your league, scoop him up.

RB Devin Singletary, New York Giants

Singletary, on the other hand, has clearly been overtaken by Tyrone Tracy as the Giants’ RB1. Over the last three weeks, despite dealing with a concussion, the rookie has outsnapped Singletary 66% to 30%. Singletary has also seen just 18 opportunities to Tracy’s 49. He’s only a wavier target in super deep leagues where every NFL team's RB2 is rostered. 

WR Jalen Coker, Carolina Panthers

Coming into Week 9 with plenty of hype, the UDFA rookie out of Holy Cross didn’t deliver. He earned just three targets (an 11.5% share), catching two for 36 yards. Even more worrisome, Coker was a clear third among the Panthers’ WRs in terms of routes, with just a 48% route participation rate. I still like Coker’s potential for Dynasty leagues, but he’s droppable in essentially all formats as the WR3 on a terrible offense.     

QB Bo Nix, Denver Broncos

Nix is an exciting, dual-threat quarterback, and he has been improving as the season goes on. With that said, he just failed to crack even 12 fantasy points against the sieve the Ravens call a secondary (although he did have a sick receiving touchdown). Overall, Nix is producing like more of a streaming QB option than anything else, so it makes sense that he is headed back to waiver wires ahead of a tough matchup with the Chiefs.

If you’re desperate for QB help in a deeper league, Nix’s rushing ability makes him worth stashing. Otherwise, don’t bother adding him unless you plan on starting him in a given week.

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