Welcome to the Monday edition of the Daily Dose newsletter, our “Fantasy Fallout” day. In this article, you will get a quick rundown of the relevant things we learned from the week’s games from Thursday through Sunday. This won’t talk about every single player and we usually won’t spend time on studs who go nuts (no one needs to be told to start CeeDee Lamb right now!), but rather, the idea is to update you on usage trends, injuries, and other relevant things to help your decisions with your teams.

Bucs at Falcons

• Kirk Cousins threw for over 500 yards and four TDs, for only the 13th-such occurrence in NFL history. This led to Drake London (who we wrote up last week) and Darnell Mooney producing their career best fantasy outputs, as they both surpassed 30 points in PPR scoring.
• The Buccaneers’ secondary has become a matchup to target with opposing WRs as London, Mooney, Amon-Ra St. Brown and Courtland Sutton have all posted their best fantasy lines of the season against Tampa Bay.
• Tyler Allgeier continues to be involved for Atlanta, seeing a season-high 38% snap count on Thursday. Like the Jets’ Brealon Allen, Allgeier is a strong handcuff who has weekly starter value even without an injury to Bijan Robinson. 
• The Buccaneers’ backfield has evolved into a 50/50 split between rookie Bucky Irving and Rachaad White. Since Week 1, White has 36 rush attempts while Irving has 35. 
• Mike Evans and Chris Godwin continue to be heavily involved in the offense, but it was Evans who secured two TD catches in this one for the bigger fantasy day. Both remain every-week starters.
• Baker Mayfield produced his fourth game (out of five) this season with 20 or more fantasy points. He remains a weekly starter and a cheaper trade target / waiver pickup for any team needing QB help.

Jets at Vikings

• Aaron Jones left the game early with an apparent hip injury. If he were to miss time, Ty Chandler would be in line for an increased workload and should be a priority add if available on waivers. Jones has been an integral part of the Vikings’ offense, so this is definitely an injury to monitor. The Vikings do have a Week 6 bye, so he has some time.
• The chemistry we’ve been talking about between Aaron Rodgers and Garrett Wilson finally seems to be coming together, as Wilson exploded for a 13-101-1 line on 22 (!!) targets.
• In his second game back from injury, Jordan Addison took a back seat to Justin Jefferson, but he saw eight targets as the Vikings improved to 5-0.

These are the top players to consider adding from waivers this week. Unless otherwise noted, all players below are available in greater than 50% of Yahoo leagues (as of Sunday evening).

Week 6 teams on bye: Chiefs, Dolphins, Rams, Vikings

QB Streamer of the Week

Daniel Jones, NYG, Week 6 vs CIN

• Jones had a solid game (257 yards passing / two TDs) and the Giants surprisingly won outright at Seattle last week despite missing their best offensive player, rookie WR phenom Malik Nabers, and another of their top weapons, veteran RB Devin Singletary.
• Danny Dimes has been a top-15 fantasy QB in most formats this season and now gets the pleasure of hosting a Bengals defense that has really been struggling and allowing some big plays in their last three games against the Ravens (Lamar Jackson 348/4), Panthers (Andy Dalton 220/2), and Commanders (Jayden Daniels more total TDs than incompletions).
• Low-priority add. Jones is my favorite (widely available) QB streamer this week based on his solid play this year and this week’s attractive matchup with a struggling Bengals defense.
• 5% or less of FAAB.

RB Pickups

These are the guys who public perception may be low on but have brighter days ahead…..as well as the guys who may be coming off a big game but have a tough schedule or potential role change in their future.

BUY LOW

Sam LaPorta, TE, DET

• The Lions are coming off their Week 5 bye, which has a ton of value for us now. LaPorta has disappointed this season, but the tight end position as a whole has also been down. The Lions found their stride offensively in Week 4, dropping 42 points on the Seahawks. LaPorta also had a strong game in terms of target share (22%) and production (four receptions for 53 yards) despite a low game in terms of passing volume. Bigger days are certainly ahead, and LaPorta is a guy that you can plug into your TE spot going forward and open up roster spots by negating the need to ever roster two TEs the rest of the way, since his bye has already happened.

Deebo Samuel, WR, SF

This article is intended to highlight some players who may have a positive or negative weekly outlook relative to their baseline value.

“Starts” are players who might generally be on fantasy benches but might have a terrific perceived matchup or game script/environment, or the potential for an expanded role due to past performance or injuries to teammates or opponents. 

“Fades” are players who were likely drafted as fantasy starters or have performed as automatic starters lately but face a particularly tough week due to a poor matchup or a lack of short-term role clarity due to an injury, etc. 

Here are a few of my notable starts and fades for Week 6 of the 2024 NFL season, with some notes on my thought process included:

QB

Start: Daniel Jones, NYG (vs CIN)

• Danny Dimes, often undrafted in single-QB fantasy leagues, has finished as a top-12 option in three of his five starts this season. He’s had multiple TD passes in three of his past four games and had his season high in rushing yards (38) in last week’s upset win at Seattle.
• Sunday night, the Giants host the Bengals as 3.5-point home underdogs in a game with one of the highest implied point totals (48.0) of the week. Joe Burrow and the Bengals’ offense seem to be clicking on all cylinders at the moment, while their defense has allowed major fantasy production to opposing QBs and passing games this year, especially in their past three games against the Ravens, Panthers, and Commanders.
• Giants impressive rookie WR Malik Nabers missed last week’s win with a concussion and has not yet been cleared to return. Veteran WR Darius Slayton filled in admirably for Nabers against Seattle, leading the team in all receiving categories with his 8/122/1 stat line. My assumption is that Nabers will return to the lineup this week, giving the Giants’ offense their most explosive playmaker back.
• I’m playing Jones as a back-end QB1 this week against a struggling Bengals defense in what projects to be a high-scoring SNF game. While there is a worst-case scenario where Nabers sits out another game, Jones’ (and Slayton’s) performance last week leads me to believe the Giants’ offense will be successful on Sunday night with or without their star rookie WR.

Fade:  C.J. Stroud, HOU (at NE)

• Stroud has picked up his second NFL season right where he left off as a rookie, as one of the best QBs on the planet. Through five games this season, he’s third in the league in passing yards and already has his Texans leading the AFC South by two games plus an early tiebreaker over the Colts.
• Stroud and the Texans head to Foxboro as touchdown favorites over the Patriots in a game with one of the lower implied point totals (38.0) of the week. New England rookie QB Drake Maye will make his first career start behind a porous Pats offensive line that has allowed 19 QB sacks, second most in the league.
• Texans superstar WR Nico Collins suffered a hamstring injury on his long TD reception last week and has since been placed on IR. He leads Houston in catches (tied for 3rd in the NFL), receiving yards (1st), and receiving TDs (T-6th).
• While there’s a chance that Drake starting gives the NE offense a spark and gets this game going back and forth, I think it’s way likely to play to the low implied point total that Vegas projects it to be. I prefer to keep Stroud on benches (if feasible with byes, etc.) this week in single-QB leagues to play an option with more rushing upside or in a better projected game environment.

RB

Start: Tyjae Spears, TEN (vs IND)

Some things in fantasy football are easy. We know we should start Tyreek Hill and Breece Hall. We know we should bench the backup running back who is only on our roster in case of injury. A lot of the decisions are made for us. However, there are a lot of things that are not so simple. All of the “in between” situations are what can make the difference between a few wins and losses, and therefore it can be the difference between a successful season or a failed season. Every Friday, we are here to help!!

I’ll take questions each week in our #fantasy-football channel in our Discord from people looking for Start/Sit advice and give my thoughts. This article on Fridays will feature a few of those questions and responses, so join our Discord to be a part of the conversation or ask questions of your own!!

Question 1:: Calvin Ridley or Christian Kirk? Rico Dowdle or Zack Moss?  Kyle Pitts or Tucker Kraft?  (PPR) (Brooks Truck)

Answer:: Ridley – Kirk plays a tough Bears pass defense (No. 2 in DVOA) and Ridley plays the struggling Colts secondary and is coming off a bye.

Dowdle – Rico took control of the Dallas backfield with 22 touches last week while Moss is still in a timeshare and battling an injury.

Kraft – This is really close and I don’t always like to “chase the points”, but Kraft has a great matchup and has shown he can not only make the plays that are there but also make things happen after the catch.

Question 2:: Need 1 RB, 1 Flex: Tank Bigsby, Dontayvion Wicks, Mike Williams, Bucky Irving, Trey Sermon, Noah Brown (andrewl9))

The weekend is here and it’s time to get our lineups set before Sunday’s full slate of games. Each week, the Saturday edition of the Daily Dose will feature my rankings for all players who have yet to play a game this week. Obviously this will not include the Thursday games, but feel free to hit me up in Discord if you have some tough decisions around guys who play on Thursday. 

Most of the leagues I play in are full-PPR, 12-team leagues and these rankings are designed for those settings – you may need to make some slight adjustments based on your own league settings.

QB:: 

1. Lamar Jackson
2. Jalen Hurts
3. Jayden Daniels
4. Joe Burrow
5. Dak Prescott
6. Kyler Murray
7. Josh Allen
8. Kirk Cousins
9. Jordan Love
10. C.J. Stroud
11. Caleb Williams
12. Justin Fields
13. Baker Mayfield
14. Jared Goff
15. Daniel Jones
16. Anthony Richardson
17. Andy Dalton
18. Trevor Lawrence
19. Deshaun Watson
20. Aaron Rodgers
21. Drake Maye
22. Will Levis
23. Justin Herbert
24. Bo Nix
25. Spencer Rattler
26. Aidan O’Connell

RB:: 

The theme of this article is, “Work smarter, not harder.” Every week we will give you the top Waiver Adds in our Tuesday article. However, you can make things a lot easier and less stressful by getting ahead of things with some players and situations. Doing so in a smart way can help you save FAAB or preserve high waiver priority in your league. 

Every Sunday I will give you a few players who stand out to me as great potential additions that can give you a leg up on your league mates. Look to add these players if you have players you are willing to drop, who get late-week injuries, or who are ruled out of their games and allow you to move them to an IR spot once they are officially inactive on Sunday morning.

Matthew Stafford, QB, LAR

• The Rams are on bye this week but have a great matchup against the Raiders in Week 7, and Stafford may be getting star WR Cooper Kupp back as well. He has struggled a bit so far this season, but the Raiders have made guys like Andy Dalton and Bo Nix look like superstars, so if you have Dak Prescott or another QB with a week 7 bye, Stafford is the guy you want.

Ty Chandler, RB, MIN